He froze in place, realizing the gravity of the situation.
“Okay, pal,” he said with a gulp. “Whatever you say. Just keep the jewels in place, yeah?”
“How are you moving so fast?”
“Wizard cast some speed spell on me,” he answered. “Said you were moving faster than you should be and wanted to even the playing field.”
“Why are you supporting this wizard?”
“Ten bucks is ten bucks, pal.” He swallowed hard. I twisted his sack slightly. “Okay, okay! The truth is that he’s my brother-in-law. My wife’s been riding me to help him out with this venture. Things haven’t exactly been great at home.”
“Oh,” I said, relaxing my grip slightly. “Sorry.”
“Honestly,” he said between short breaths, “you gripping my tenderviddles is about the most action I’ve had in a year.”
“Ew.” I gave him a sour look, but I wasn’t about to release him just yet. If I did, he’d just redouble his efforts. There’s no way he’d give me another chance to get free. “So you’re doing this for marital reasons?”
“And the money,” he admitted. “Both.”
“You realize we’re going to kill you, though, right?”
“Only if I don’t kill you first,” he argued. I twisted again. “Ahhh! Right! I get your point.”
“What about the rest of these people? Are they in a similar situation?”
“No, no,” he answered with a grunt. “Just me. Aren’t many werebears in town, you know.”
“I only knew of one, until now.”
“Me, too.”
I looked at him funnily. “Who?”
“Rick Portman. Works at the morgue. We’re drinking buddies.”
“Portman is with me.”
“Oh yeah?” He tried to smile, but my grip on his nethers made it look more like he had gas. “Never mentioned it.”
“What’s your name?” I said as I reached down with my other hand to pick up Boomy.
“Harvey Smith,” he answered.
“Okay, Harvey,” I said, feeling bad about having to kill Portman’s pal, “Have you killed anyone for these wizards yet?”
“No,” he answered seriously. “I wasn’t planning to kill you either, until you grabbed my nuts anyway. Was told to knock you out and bring you back to the boss.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah,” he said. “None of you are supposed to be killed.”
“Interesting.”
I pointed Boomy to the left and placed a breaker bullet in the chest of a vampire that had been slowly sneaking up on us. He was still in go-slow mode, after all.
Then I placed Boomy on Harvey’s chest and let go of his balls. He breathed heavily.
“How do you feel about your brother-in-law?”
Harvey was wincing. “Hate him nearly as much as I hate his sister.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re working for us now.”
“I am?”
I pressed Boomy against his chest a little harder. “Unless you’d rather die?”
“Always wanted to help the Paranormal Police Department,” he said with a gulp.
Chapter 39
I made sure that Rachel and the crew knew not to fire at Harvey.
There was something to be said about having a werebear on your side in general, but one who could move with the same speed I was able to was priceless.
Harvey and I were cutting a swath right though the bodyguards like they were nothing. I was using my guns and Harvey was just ripping them to shreds. But those power word yelling bastards kept healing them.
Harvey charged a vampire “healer” and made quick work of him.
The second one was standing on a ledge above the fray with his little purple outfit and green hat.
It was a damn pixie and he was bouncing around full speed like me and Harvey.
I ran around the hill and ran up to him from behind, just as he was about to use his little wand to send a charge of something at Harvey. Obviously he’d spotted that the werebear had changed sides. And now that Harvey was on my side, it was my job to protect him as best I could.
“Nope,” I said, plucking the wand from the pixie’s hand.
He spun around and looked cross. “Give me that back, you dick fume.”
“Dick fume?” I said. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but that’s a first.”
“Do I look like I care?” he retaliated, crossing his arms. Then his eyes grew wide, his expression changed to one of surprise, he pointed, and yelled, “Look out!”
Instead of turning, I merely ducked.
It was a ruse.
He started to fly using his little pixie wings.
Not on my watch.
I snapped him from the air and brought him to eye level, giving him a devilish glare. Now, it must be said that your average pixie is not easily intimidated. It’s like how a chihuahua is more than willing to go toe-to-toe with a great dane. It’s not that they have even the slightest chance of winning that battle, but the chihuahua doesn’t know this until it’s too late. And, to be fair, the great dane second-guesses things because that damn chihuahua is far more confident about the outcome of things than he should be.
Fortunately, I knew pixies pretty well. They were masters at thievery, sneak attacks, and being assholes.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I said powerfully.
“Your mom’s house.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“I heard she was lonely. Figured I could slip her a little pixie-lovin’.”
“Very little,” I countered.
He frowned. “I’m above average for my size, I’ll have you know.”
“Oh, my apologies, then,” I said mockingly. “That would make you still way too little for my mom.”
“She gets around, eh?”
There was little point trying to get the upper hand against a pixie in a battle of insults. They were just too good at it. It was their primary skillset, after all. Yes, they did magic, too, but mostly they were great at annoying people into submission. If you weren’t careful, they’d divert your attention and then attack.
“I don’t have time for this,” I said and then launched the pixie with a full throw at Harvey.
The pixie yelled “Priiiiiiick” back at me while giving me the finger. A split-second later he’d become a snack for Harvey the werebear.
“Chief,” Chuck said through the connector as I felt Haste starting to slow, “we’ve got things under control here except for the power word guys. They’re a pain!”
“We’ve just destroyed ours,” I replied. “I’ve turned one of the bad guys to our side, too.”
“How did you manage that?” asked Griff.
“Made him an offer he couldn’t refuse,” I replied. “You have to take out those healers, Griff. If you don’t, we’re done for.”
“We’re working on it. Are you making any progress toward stopping the wizard?”
“Just about to head into his circle,” I replied after shearing off half the head of a fae with Boomy. “Our new pal is going to deliver us as prisoners.”
“What?” said Rachel before Griff could reply.
“All part of my plan.”
“You planned for this?” She grunted. “I don’t remember hearing about this part of the plan. I would have remembered it, too, because it’s crazy.”
I ducked under a swing from a werewolf and kicked out at his knee, cracking it and sending him to the ground howling. A nicely placed bullet ended his anguish.
“I know it’s crazy,” I said, “which is why it’ll work. I thought we’d be able to do a straight assault, but we’re already wearing out and Haste is about gone.”
And it was. I was slowing back to normal speed.
The beasties were all but decimated by the time I made my final lap. Haste was done. This sucked because I was now exhausted. One of the rough parts about using m
y special skills was how wiped out I became when I was done.
But this time I was prepared.
Knowing that I was likely to drop into these modes, I had Serena whip me up a batch of replenishing energy. She used to do this during our sexcapades back in the day. Yes, there was a time when we could quite literally play “Bad cop, naughty cop” all weekend long.
I downed the elixir and my energy came back to full within seconds.
Eventually, I’d pay the price. You couldn’t borrow energy without it catching up to you. Once this was said and done, I’d have to sleep for a few days. That assumed we got through this in one piece. If not, I’d sleep a lot longer.
Cletus wasted the last of the zombies while Merle dropped the final vampire.
Everyone was exhausted but me. I had six vials of the stuff left, though, so I handed one to Rachel, two to Harvey, and one to Cletus and Merle to share. Hooking up normals with this stuff was dicey, so I wanted to make sure they didn’t get a full shot.
“Now that everyone is back to one hundred percent,” I said, “it’s time to pay a visit to Fred.”
Chapter 40
“Who is Fred?” Harvey asked after introductions.
“Your brother-in-law,” I replied. “He’s been a real pain in the ass over the last few days and it looks like he wants be even naughtier.”
“My brother-in-law’s name is Chip,” Harvey corrected. “I don’t know anyone named Fred.” He looked up suddenly. “You sure you got the right fight, pal?”
“I didn’t know his actual name, and I wasn’t going to go around calling him ‘old guy’ all the time.”
“Chip’s not old. He’s about my age.” Then he snapped his fingers. “Wait, you’re talking about Chip’s boss, right?”
“I guess so,” I answered. “You’d said that the boss wanted us brought in alive, so I assumed that your brother-in-law was the boss.”
“Nah. Chip’s a mid-level mage.”
“But you said the boss wanted us brought back alive, right?”
“Yep, and I said that because Chip said that. I was just regurgitating.”
Rachel stuck her knife back in her boot after wiping it off on one of the fallen’s suit. She closed the clasp and smacked dirt off her leathers. The entire time she was bent over and doing this, the four men in camp just stared like a bunch of teenagers seeing their first supermodel. Cletus and Merle seemed the most affected by it. This probably had to do with their being in an emotionally charged state already.
“So what’s the main guy’s actual name?” Rachel said as she turned to look at us. She clearly noticed that we were all staring at her because she added, “What?”
“Hmmm?” I said and then coughed. “Uh, nothing. Must just be the elixir. What was your question?”
“The big boss,” she said, nodding at Harvey, “what’s his name?”
“Frederik,” Harvey answered and then guffawed. “Hey wait, you said ‘Fred,’ right?”
I gave a sideways smile to Rachel. “I sure did.”
“I didn’t put two and two together because he hates being called Fred.” He chuckled for a second. “So you know the guy?”
“Not exactly. Lucky guess, I suppose.”
We got another communique in from the team at the front lines. It seemed that Fred—or Frederik—had started sending his second wave in. The normals were having a blast, but my crew was starting to run out of steam.
We crested another hill and saw that Fred had set up a basecamp. This was good and bad. It was good because it meant he wasn’t going to be moving around; it was bad because there would certainly be sentries around.
Everyone hit the dirt.
“Did you feel anything trigger?” I asked Rachel.
“No, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t spotted.”
Exactly what I was thinking.
I motioned everyone to slowly creep back down until we were out of visual range from any of the hills on the other side. We could only hope that nobody saw us. With any luck they were all looking in different directions at the time.
But we had to have our bearings, so I crawled back up, recognizing the fact that this suit was completely done for. It was my own fault. I seriously needed to invest in an outfit that was meant for this type of fighting.
Zooming my vision, I caught three sentries. One was directly across from us. He appeared to be sleeping. Another was inline with the campground, nearly right on top of it. The third was in the distance, toward where the rest of my crew and the normals were battling zombies. I guessed that sentry was really there to relay details on the fight.
I couldn’t spot any on this side, which seemed odd. Why only cover one visual plane?
“I see only three,” I said after getting back with the crew, “and they’re all on the other side.”
“That don’t make sense,” Merle said.
“Nope,” agreed Cletus.
“Doesn’t to me either,” I stated, “so keep your eyes open and move carefully.”
“He probably just has detectors on this side,” noted Rachel. “Or maybe explosives.”
That put a dent in my plan. I was hoping to have the two normals skirt around and lay down fire against the zombies once our true purpose in camp became apparent, but they didn’t have a connector installed. That meant our fancy glasses wouldn’t allow them to spot any bombs. It was one thing to get them to fight along with us, but something else entirely to just blow up while walking along to set up sniper positions.
“You’ll have to go with them,” I said to Rachel. Her eyebrows went up and she started to speak, but I stopped her. “It’s the only way. These guys can’t wear the shades.”
“I can wear shades,” argued Cletus. “Do it all the time.”
“Me, too,” Merle said with a nod. “Not at night, usually, but I’m quite capable of wearing them.”
“These aren’t just any shades, gentlemen,” I said, and left it at that. “Rachel, it’s the only way. You have to keep them safe while Harvey brings me in.”
She sighed and nodded.
I knew she didn’t like it. Neither did I, but sometimes that’s how things rolled out. Besides, it could be for the best anyway since having her throwing magic from afar would be useful in keeping the mages on the ground busy.
“All right, Harvey,” I said after checking my weapons to make sure they were set, “you ready to do this?”
“As long as you keep your promise about letting me rip Chip’s head off, I’m good.”
“You’ve got my word,” I stated with a sharp nod. “Of course, that assumes that you get to him first. If one of these guys shoots him, it’s out of my hands.”
Harvey frowned, which looked really strange on a bear. “A deal is a deal, Officer Dex.”
“It’s fine,” said Cletus. “We can shoot around him. Right, Merle?”
“It’d help if we knew what he looked like.”
“Oh yeah.” Harvey tapped his cheek while looking up. “He’s a little guy about your height,” he said, pointing at Cletus. “Wears a black robe and a pointy hat.”
“Don’t all of the wizards down there do that?” I asked, recalling the quick scan I’d done.
“Yeah, that’s true.” Harvey snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah, you won’t be able to miss him! My wife bought him one of those silly laser signs for his birthday last month. Makes him wear it, too.” He leaned in. “She’s really pushy. Matriarch of the family and all, you know?”
I frowned. “You’re kidding.”
“No.” He laughed. “The other wizards make fun of him relentlessly because of that sign. Anyway, if you see that, it’s Chip.”
“What’s it say?” I cautiously ventured.
“Chip, the wizard.”
Chapter 41
Harvey carried me in to camp as if I’d been knocked out. Honestly, it must have looked like he was carrying me across the marital threshold because I was on my back in his massive arms. I was comfortable in my masculinity, bu
t it didn’t help to hear Rachel making jokes through the connector.
“Now if you have any questions about your first night together, Ian,” she was saying, “make sure to ask them before he takes your flower.”
“Shut up,” I whisper-hissed. “I’m trying to get my head in the game here.”
“That’s the spirit. Just act like you enjoy it. He’ll never know.”
I wanted to groan in response, but that would only spur on another comment. Besides, we were getting close to the main players now.
It was show time.
“Where are the rest of them?” asked a snotty sounding man.
“They put up a fight, Chip,” Harvey answered evenly. “Me and this guy were the only two survivors, and he got it worse than I did.”
“Unbelievable. You had one job to do, and it wasn’t even a difficult job. My sister was right, you are an imbecile.”
Okay, so now I understood why Harvey was amped to tear this guy’s limbs off. And according to my new werebear pal, Chip’s sister was even worse. At least she wasn’t here to tag team the poor guy.
“Hey, sis,” Chip called out, “your lame excuse for a husband screwed up again.”
“What?” a female version of Chip said. I heard the crunching of dirt under feet. “Where are the rest of them, you worthless snake?”
I cracked open an eye and found myself looking at an incredibly attractive woman. She had dark red hair, green eyes, pale skin, and lips so full that they could have been moon bounces. Honestly, it made me grasp how Harvey could manage to put up with her nagging.
“They were killed, along with all our guys.”
Harvey’s voice had an edge to it. A grit. He was losing his cool. I pinched his arm, hoping to stir the memory that we needed him to keep that facade rolling a little longer. Obviously he caught on because he sighed and grunted.
“Sorry to be obstinate, Matilda,” he said like a defeated husband. “I think the speed spell Chip put on me wore me out a bit.”
Matilda?
“A real man could handle that spell without a problem,” Matilda noted with much disdain. “I’ll never understand how you became a werebear at all. Weak-willed, weak-spirited, and weak minded.”
The Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Series: Books 1 - 4 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department Box Sets) Page 27
