The Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Series: Books 1 - 4 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department Box Sets)

by John P. Logsdon

  “Yep,” agreed Merle.

  Chapter 36

  We arrived at the stopping point and jumped out. Everyone had their amulets on and weapons at the ready.

  I had no idea what to expect from Shitfaced Fred. My guess was that he wouldn’t be stupid enough to bypass covering his back. There were bound to be sentries, bodyguards, and notification runes. Hopefully those runes weren’t tied to explosives, but Turbo’s adjustment to our glasses would allow us to spot those pretty easily.

  “It’s go time,” I said as I started up the small hill that separated us from Fred and his army. “Keep your wits about you. There’s bound to be trouble soon.”

  “Chief,” Chuck called through the connector, “we’ve made contact. The zombies are flowing in and the normals are lighting them up.”

  “Great. Keep us posted.”

  I heard yelling in the distance. It sounded like someone was pretty pissed off. That had to be Fred or one of his lackeys.

  “We just tripped a notification rune,” Rachel said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Felt it.”

  “I thought you needed some type of spell for spotting those.”

  “You do,” she replied. “I didn’t spot it. I tripped it. I don’t need a spell to know if I set off one of them.”

  In support of Rachel’s statement, a couple of creatures appeared at the top of the hill in front of us. I zoomed in and saw two werewolves eying us. There was drool dripping from their mouths. Great. Hungry werewolves.

  “What’s them things?” Merle asked.

  “I think you know,” I answered while taking out Boomy. I kept Boomy Jr.—which is what I named the Desert Eagle that was built to use paintballs—tucked away. It wouldn’t do any good against naughty doggies. “Take out your real guns and get ready to shoot.” I stopped and glanced back. “Only fire if they get past me.”

  “But they ain’t even movin’ after us,” Cletus said. The werewolves began slinking our way. “Okay, maybe they is.”

  “Just keep cool and aim carefully,” I said in a calm voice. “We do this all the time. You’ll be fine.”

  Rachel’s hands lit up and she got ready to launch fireballs at the beasties, but I pushed her hands down. She groaned. Our agreement was that she wouldn’t use up her magic until we were facing other magic users. We didn’t have backup on the mage front, after all.

  “Watch them,” I commanded as I moved forward to intercept the wolves.

  Once we got within one hundred yards of each other, they broke into a run.

  I set myself and slowed my breathing, taking aim at the one on my left. He dropped an instant later. The one on the right followed shortly thereafter.

  “Damn, son,” said Cletus, stepping up next to me. “That was some mighty fine shootin’ there. I’d hate to see what you could do to a beer can!”

  “Thanks.”

  We kept moving forward into the darkness. There was a hint of a glow not too far ahead, which had to be where Fred and his crew were strolling along behind the action.

  We stopped and looked at the wolves I’d just wasted. They’d gone back to their normal bodies, except for chunks that were missing due to our 50-caliber rounds. I checked them over to see if they had any way to communicate. A crackling sound came through from near the larger of the two. Rachel reached down and picked it up, handing it to me.

  It looked like a small speaker with a button on the side.

  The thing crackled again and I heard someone say, “Status?”

  I looked at the others and shrugged.

  “All clear,” I replied in a growl after pressing the little button.

  We waited.

  “Good,” the response came finally. “Keep your eyes open.”

  This time, I didn’t answer. I had no protocol and didn’t know their rules, so I wasn’t about to take a chance and screw up. It had already been a risk to reply at all, but I figured that if it worked, we wouldn’t have another ten of the things coming to check us out.

  “Why’d ya growl?” asked Merle.

  “So they’d think I was a werewolf.”

  “Ah yeah, s’pose that makes sense.”

  We cleared the next hill and looked down over a large expanse. I’d been right about the glow. It was definitely coming from Fred’s advancing group.

  Another zoom showed me a mass of zombies leading the way. A small group of slouched people were behind them. These had to be the necromancer apprentices. At least if you based them on the description that O had given me. Further back there were a number of zombies mixed in with wolves, vampires, and a succubus.

  “Priscilla?” said Rachel as she cracked her neck from side-to-side.

  “Hard to say from here,” I replied, though it did look like her. “She was a nice girl, though, Rachel. No reason to get all medieval on her.”

  Rachel turned slowly toward me. “She’s a succubus, idiot. There’s no such thing as a nice succubus.”

  “Stereotyping is wrong.”

  “Ya got that right,” Cletus said. “And Mr. Dex here oughta know since he done did it to us just a couple hours back.”

  You just couldn’t win with some folks.

  We kept up our pace, until we were within range of doing some damage. I was glad we’d brought along the two normals because we were going to need some firepower against all of these bodyguards. Turning to look at Cletus and Merle, I could only hope they were up for it.

  Just in case, I stopped and motioned everyone to hunker down.

  “Are you two going to be okay here?” I asked Cletus and Merle, recalling how they were only into shooting beer cans and bottles. “What we’re going up against are living creatures. Now, they’re bent on killing you, me, and everyone they can get their hands on…but they’re still alive.”

  “From what you said before, we ain’t got much of a choice,” Merle replied, looking less than okay. “Besides, it’s not like I’m shooting some defenseless deer who just stopped off at the pond for a quick sip.”

  “You’re really not,” I agreed. “These things will rip you to pieces. And if they get past us, they’ll head to Vegas and tear apart everyone else, too.”

  “Then I guess we gotta do what we gotta do,” Merle said, clearly trying to harden his resolve, though he still looked very uneasy.

  It was more than unfair to throw these two into this situation, but we needed them. Vegas needed them.

  “Cletus,” I said, “are you ready for this?”

  “I’ll be fine.” Cletus seemed to be handling this a little better than his pal. He must have sensed that I’d noticed that, because he added, “Fact is that we gotta get to work. How many times is we gonna be able to put up a fight against stuff like this? They get past us and this town is done for. Where I’m from, we don’t back down in the face of wrongdoing. Merle and me’ll stand up and fight, mister. Ain’t that right, Merle?”

  “Damn straight, Cletus,” Merle replied, his face creasing back into that squint he’d had when we first met. Obviously Cletus had played the right chord. He grabbed a fresh wad of chew and stuck it into his mouth. “Sittin’ around jawing about it ain’t gettin’ us nowhere. Let’s open us a can of whoopass on these suckers.”

  Chapter 37

  Rachel hung back so she could keep a wide view on things. The hope was that she’d be able to knock out anything that got too close to Cletus and Merle. The second hope was that these amulets would afford us enough protection against anything Fred and his pals might throw our way.

  “Remember,” I whispered as we continued moving, “left hand is the paintball gun. That’s for zombies. Right hand contains the breaker bullets that are for the rest of them. We can all be shot with the paintballs and it won’t do anything but sting a little because of the enhancements made by Turbo, but the breakers will kill us. Clear?”

  They replied by giving a sinister nod.

  It was good to see they were ready for action.

  Then Merle said, �
��How can you tell the difference between a zombie and the others?”

  I pointed at a zombie. Its gait was staggered, like a drunkard who needed to sleep it off. Not unlike the image of Fred when he’d fooled us back by King David’s. I grunted at the thought.

  “Got it,” Merle stated.

  “Let’s stick together,” I added as I lifted up Boomy and took aim at the nearest vampire’s back. “Nobody runs off.”

  In response, Merle had his paint gun aimed at the zombie I’d pointed at while aiming his standard Eagle at a werewolf. Cletus had taken on a similar stance.

  Not to be outdone, I withdrew Boomy Jr. and had both at the ready.

  “Hold steady until I give the word,” I commanded and then called back to Chuck through the connector. “What’s the status, Chuck?”

  “We’re getting swarmed here,” he replied through ragged breaths. “There are paint pellets zipping all over the place, and they’re working like a charm, but there’s just too many of them. We’re struggling, Chief.”

  “Understood. We’re about to engage from the rear, so I have a feeling you’re about to get a slight reprieve.”

  “Could use it.”

  “Roger that,” I agreed. “Hang tight.”

  I gave Merle and Cletus one last glance. They clearly had gotten over their nerves because those guns were barely shaking, and they’d been holding them a while. I guess Cletus’s speech had really struck a nerve with Merle.

  “On three, gentlemen,” I announced. “One…two…three!”

  We all pulled our triggers and the battle was on.

  Bodies dropped, howls rang out, and zombies turned to dust. Those paint pellets were incredible, and they had to be because we had awakened the bodyguards while letting Fred know that we had arrived.

  The beasts spun around and started their counterassault.

  They were flying in at speeds that were bound to be too much for the likes of Cletus and Merle. Fortunately, Rachel was there to send fireballs into the mix. I sure as hell was glad that these amulets were shielding off any heat that got too close. We’d have been toast otherwise.

  “Just keep firing,” I called out as the screams increased from the oncoming rush of beasts. “Don’t let up even for a second.”

  “Gotta change ammo at some point,” Cletus yelled back.

  “Well, yeah, obviously, but just be quick about it.”

  A lightning bolt zigzagged its way through the oncoming bodies, striking my shield and dissipating. That solidified the fact that Fred knew we were here. Another bolt came from the sky in a huge arc that slammed into the ground nearby, throwing us from our feet. Obviously he had ways of impeding our progress without directly hitting us. It slowed up his own followers too, though.

  “Ian,” Rachel called out.

  I spun around to see two zombies were damn near on her, and she was already having words with a vampire.

  Just as I was raising my gun, Merle turned those two zombies to dust and Cletus took out the chick that Rachel had been wrestling with.

  Impressive.

  Not time for kudos, though. We had to keep fighting or we’d end up as part of Shitfaced Fred’s army. I didn’t have any interest in volunteering at this stage of my life, and I certainly didn’t want to be volunteered in the afterlife.

  “There’s a bit of a turn here, Chief,” Chuck called through the connector. “You’re attacking?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I replied after dropping a fae. “We started it, but it’s been all defense since then.”

  “Well, you’ve done something right because we’ve been able to take them out in double time.”

  “Good, glad to have helped.”

  The word “helped” was said with a grunt as a vampire cannoned into me after being shot by Merle. I rolled back to my feet just in time to get knocked on my ass again by a damn lightning bolt.

  “Rachel,” I said calmly, after expertly swapping in fresh magazines, “I’m tiring of this. We need to break through.”

  “It’ll cost energy.”

  “I think it already is,” I replied. “Do it or I’m going to have to jump into Freeze again.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “Wait,” I said, scanning the area. “Scratch that. I’ve got a better idea.”

  “Haste?” she ventured.

  “Yep.”

  “Shit,” she said. “All right. Tell Cletus and Merle to cover their eyes when I yell, and to be ready to run back to me. I’m going to flash the area to give you time.”

  I told them.

  Ten seconds later, Rachel yelled “Now” and a light hit with such power that it nearly blinded me through my shut eyes.

  Creatures groaned and screamed and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. The zombies were still moving, clearly not caring about their eyesight. Cletus and Merle were taking care of them decently, though they were complaining about seeing spots.

  It was time for me to move.

  Fast.

  Very fast.

  Chapter 38

  My eyes were already closed, but I moved into a state of instant calm. I had to shut out everything that was going on in the world in order to activate Haste.

  Screams became distant hums, magical blasts were nothing but a dull breeze…

  Silence.

  Deadness.

  I’d hit my core.

  I had a number of resources at my disposal, depending on the situation. There were a few that I knew about, but they had been discovered over time, meaning there were likely more yet to be uncovered. I knew I could freeze my emotions, go into a berserker mode that leveraged fear, summon strength, haze my physical presence, preserve oxygen, and go into a level of speed and accuracy that would make me a blur.

  I named the last one on the list “haste.” I wasn’t exactly creative about naming these things.

  There were many methods to calling up these skills, but most of them required that I go into a trance-like state for a few moments. This made me vulnerable, which is why Rachel covered me like she did.

  I called upon Haste.

  My body began to tremble as the rush of noise came back.

  There was a vampire standing above me with his fist pulled back. He was preparing to knock me into yesterday when a breaker ripped through his chest and threw him backwards. Even though this had happened in an instant, to me it was like watching the scene unfold in slow motion.

  Haste was in effect.

  I jumped to my feet and scanned the area.

  Bodies were moving at fifty-percent their normal speed from my perspective, which meant they would see me as having a major spring in my step.

  Rachel had her blade out and was in the process of gutting Priscilla. It was disturbing enough to watch her do something like that at full-speed. In slow motion, it was enough to make me gag. And dammit, I’d just boned that succubus. The smirk on Rachel’s face read “mission complete.”

  Cletus and Merle fired off their weapons like seasoned cops. It seems they just needed to get past their fear.

  A hand landed on my shoulder.

  I spun and placed Boomy against the chest of a vampire that I could have sworn I ended before going into Haste. The breaker tore through her chest and blew a hole out her back. I fired two more for good measure. Obviously she’d somehow survived my first encounter with her, so I wanted to be sure she wouldn’t come back from this one.

  A voice called with a long, drawn out word. It belonged to a fae who was pointing at a fallen werewolf about ten feet from me. At first I thought maybe she wanted the doggie to stop what it was doing and stand on her left, but then I realized she was using a power word to bring the thing back to life. In other words, she’d said “heal,” not “heel.”

  We couldn’t have her continuing her doctoring ways.

  I brought Boomy up and placed a breaker right through the fae’s neck, cutting off her ability to speak along with her ability to live. Another breaker interrupted the werewolf’s healing phase
. He was out.

  Seeing that it was tough enough to beat these damn things without healers, I turned my focus on eradicating them.

  There were three within the area, aside from the fae I’d already dealt with.

  I ran at full speed toward the nearest one.

  It was a werewolf who had not fully transitioned from its normal mode. I placed a breaker bullet right in his chest as I leapt in the air, clearing his body as he flew backwards from the impact.

  A mage, who had seemingly managed to deal with our speed differential, fired an energy beam at me, but my amulet warded it off. She looked confused by this, and that gave me time to put a bullet between her eyes. It bounced off whatever shielding she had in place.

  It seemed we were at a standstill.

  Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t limited to using Boomy.

  I bolted at her as she fumbled to cast another spell. A basic fireball launched in my direction two seconds before I tackled her. She gasped for breath, making it clear that I’d knocked the wind out of her.

  “Sorry, sister,” I said as I put Boomy to her head and ended her anxiety.

  A werebear that I’d somehow missed—which was not an easy thing to do—lifted me up and launched me a good ten feet away. Either he was modified or his adrenaline had bumped him up to my speed because he was on me faster than I could pull up Boomy.

  “Oh damn,” I said as a massive paw knocked the hell out of me.

  He was swinging for the fences and I had no way to stop him other than using my arms to protect myself as much as possible.

  The ferociousness of his swipes were wearing me out fast.

  I had to think of something.

  He gave me the opportunity when he reared up and roared so loudly that I thought I was going to shit myself.

  Some people sought honorable ways to battle. They would just as soon die instead of resorting to something deemed questionable. Me, I didn’t give a damn if my methods were naughty. My goal was to stay alive when I was facing a bad guy. Anything beyond that, didn’t matter to me one bit.

  And so I snaked out a hand, gripped the werebear by his balls and said, “Stop!”