The Emperor's Shadow War (Tales of Alus Book 2)

by Donald Wigboldy

  The big bouncer tried to look menacing as he lowered his voice threateningly. “Don’t call me, Brian. You know I go by Hawk when I’m bouncing here.”

  With a sharp laugh, Nick retorted, “Hawk? Maybe an ox or bear, I don’t know about some little bird for a nickname. You’re kind of selling yourself short, aren’t you?”

  Scrubbing his face with a growled groan, the bouncer finished by pointing to the two girls and gestured for them to come up. Several voices raised in protest. “Knock it off or you can go home!” the big man shouted them down angrily. He turned a warm smile on the two girls as they climbed the stairs noting how pretty they were. “Ladies,” he nodded appreciatively.

  Nick nodded to the second man holding the door open for the women. “Brad,” he acknowledged the man. “You know you two make killer B’s right?”

  The second man, almost as big as Hawk, joined his partner in a groan. Brad had some sort of nickname also, Nick thought as he passed the man, but like Hawk’s it escaped him. The second bouncer didn’t bother to correct him before the three were inside and quickly enveloped by the sounds and sights within the club.

  Leading the girls to the bar, Nick bought a round before finding an open table. The bouncers weren’t being exclusive by keeping the line waiting. There were few tables open and the dance floor was crowded with undulating dancers moving to the beats thrown out by the dj in his box.

  Most of the tables surrounded the dance floor from an area raised by a half dozen stairs. Two bars on either side of the building kept up a steady business as the partiers lined up for their drinks. A kitchen served from the bar left of the doors, while the one to the right was mainly a wet bar.

  The girls were flirting with him even as they eyed the dance floor. These were the type of girls to dance the night away. It was an admirable goal, especially considering their high heels that Nick figured had to be relatively uncomfortable. They coaxed him out to dance. The girls were good, not just your typical sorority girls shifting weight, but near professional choreography. Nick knew some steps but was definitely out of his league with these two. The girls didn’t seem to care. They laughed and urged him to try some of their fancier steps.

  Several songs later they retreated to their drinks.

  “You’re not too bad, Nick,” the brunette, Michelle, said with a smile.

  “Yes, you kept up pretty well,” Alicia, the blond added.

  Chuckling and knowing they were being nice, Nick replied, “Well, you’re being kind, but I can tell you two are quite a bit better than me.”

  Michelle reached over to ruffle his hair as she cooed, “Aw, you’re not that bad. It’s like you’ve been dancing for years. Alicia and I used to take classes though and now we teach.”

  “Ah, so you are professionals. Now I don’t feel so bad, since I know you’re ringers.”

  The girls laughed. Nick’s eyes wandered to the far side of the bar, not for the first time. Marek and his clan were usually around somewhere. In fact, his senses told him at least a few vampires were nearby. For Nicholas, finding vampires was as easy for him as a compass pointing north. Such instincts made him good at finding strays as well as those he knew.

  “Nicky! Are you trying to make me jealous?” a familiar voice spoke from behind him even as cold fingers found his back sliding up to his shoulder and then played with his hair trailing above his neck. His new friends’ eyes turned to the girl attached to the voice looking nearly jealous themselves. They also looked to him like they feared he was playing them.

  Turning on his stool to face the woman, who was the second of the day to think he made a good ‘Nicky’, he greeted the blond with her gray piercing eyes, “Hello, Nicola, I see you’re looking well.”

  “Well, I try not to change, you know,” the vampiress stated it like an inside joke. The two humans could not know that Nick had known her for nearly eighty years. She was a later convert by Marek. Her beauty had drawn him in and the vampire could not help himself.

  Nick had not been as involved with Marek and his clan at that time. Vivian had still held onto him at that point.

  “These are my new friends, Michelle and Alicia. Ladies, this is Nicola, an old friend.”

  The vampire sighed loud enough to be heard over the music. Her hands moved to his arm drawing his hand towards her mouth. “Only because you wouldn’t let me be more,” Nicola stated seductively. Feigning a kiss of his hand, the vampire actually bit into the flesh between thumb and forefinger. The woman was a flirt and even worse with men. Nearly eight decades as a vampire had barely tempered such characteristics. If not for Marek and Nick’s guidance, the woman would probably have been put down for her appetites.

  After two quick draws of his blood, Nicola looked to the man’s face. “Mmmm, you still taste good,” she managed to smile without any blood showing in her teeth. The other two women looked disgusted at her antics and they had missed that she drew blood. They leaned to whisper to each other. Nicola’s eyes narrowed slightly as her keen ears caught their words.

  Nick’s hearing wasn’t that of a vampire, but he could tell that the words weren’t kind. He squeezed her hand drawing her eyes back to him and gently shook his head.

  “Marek’s not here yet, Nicky, if you were looking for him,” she stated the fact leaving out the words of what he might be up to this late at night. Nighttime was a vampire’s day. They made the most of the time they had out of the light that burned them as they had become. Many nights Marek and his clan patrolled their territory.

  They weren’t the only vampires in the world and probably not even in the city. Troublemakers needed to be dealt with swiftly. Marek and his people took the defense of their territory and their secret lives very seriously.

  “Will you let me know when he arrives?” He felt the gaze of his new friends as Nicola began to withdraw. The vampire’s mood seemed to cool as she became more businesslike. Returning his attention back to his guests, Nick tried to let the situation fade away.

  “Well, your friend’s quite... interesting,” Alicia commented to Michelle’s nod.

  “She’s part owner here,” Nick admitted causing the girls’ faces to show surprise. “You just have to let her get it out of her system sometimes. Anyway, are you ladies ready to dance some more?”

  Diverting their attention back to the dance floor, the three returned to the activity and soon the ladies’ moods returned to what they were before Nicola’s interruption. Nick’s attention, however, never fully left the vampiress or the door that might see Marek’s return. Knowing the vampire, they would probably use a less obvious entrance, but the man could only watch what he could see. His extra sense that could find vampires was more likely to be the one that noticed the man’s return anyway.

  An hour later, he felt them. Nicola’s signaling to him came soon afterward. Begging his partners’ forgiveness, Nick tried to excuse himself away. “Sorry, ladies, my friend has returned. We need to talk business for awhile.”

  Raising a brow curiously, the dark haired Michelle asked, “Are you part owner here also?”

  Nick let a slight smile touch his lips as he replied, “In a way.

  “Well, until we meet again. I have your numbers after all.” He kissed first one then the other.

  Blushing slightly, Alicia responded, “And we have yours, Nick. Thanks for the nice night.”

  Michelle nodded looking equally flush and holding the slip of paper with his number on it up for proof.

  With a last nod of his head and a smile, the man moved off to find Marek.

  The back room was considered a V.I.P. area. Simple red drapes barred the general public’s view and bouncers manned those outside. On the other side of that room, however, was another doorway obscured by more drapes. Mirrors and pictures lined the walls all around them, the seating was intimate and could probably have been enough for their conversation, but they moved through the second door.

  “Hello, my friend,” Marek greeted him from a plush couch. His second in c
ommand, Jake, a dark haired man with shadowy brown eyes, when they weren’t white from using his vampire powers, sat beside him with a glass filled with what appeared to be red wine.

  Around the room still dressed in their jackets, the other two men from the scouting party, Marcus, a thin black man with a shaved head and sporting a goatee, and Edgar, a slightly shorter though stockier man of Hispanic origin. Both had glasses similar to Jake’s. Nicola sat on Marek’s other side. Despite her flirting, the woman was Marek’s on again, off again girlfriend and one of his confidantes.

  “Two nights in a row? Should I assume that you missed me or have you simply come back for more business?” the vampire asked with a smile.

  The others smiled at the joke. Despite their many years of alliance, their relationship had always been sixty percent business. Give or take. “How could I not miss you and yours? A cold winter makes friends want to get together after so many days indoors.”

  Marek snorted derisively. “I wouldn’t know about the cold days. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the sun.”

  Shrugging, Nick admitted, “Winter in Chicago, there hasn’t been much sun to look at for the last few months truthfully. You haven’t missed much lately anyway.”

  The vampires all chuckled at that.

  “I would also think that you haven’t spent nearly every cold day inside either,” Marek added. “You tend to patrol as often as we do. How often do you find strays I wonder? I think that you’re better at finding them than we are. I’ve always wondered at that. Do you have some sixth sense for finding vampires?”

  “My senses are hardly what yours are, I’m sure,” the man replied vaguely. It wasn’t the first time that Marek or one of his clan had asked the question. He never told them a full lie about it. Having a sixth sense, or whatever, for his kind was both accurate and hard to put into exact words. It was also part of the mystery that could help keep their group in check. They didn’t know the range or true ability of his senses. That kept them more honest.

  The vampires all gave him a look that said they knew he was avoiding a direct answer, but they had all known each other for a long time. Nick was a man that tended to keep his own counsel and kept such secrets to himself, even Vivian had never dragged the truth of his full ability from him. She had her own secrets from him, of course, so he didn’t feel bad about it.

  “So what exactly brings you out on such a cold night, my friend?” Marek asked getting right to the point since Nick was obviously not going to give him a straight answer.

  “I had a vision. I believe that we may have a pack of werewolves in the nearby area,” he stated it simply, but the vampires all seemed surprised that he would reveal what seemed like a typical secret that he might keep to himself. Nick knew revealing that he might have visions could seem like a personal thing to keep to himself, but he wasn’t revealing all he had seen after all. “Your clan may find evidence of them around soon. There’s the possibility that you may even run into them. I figured that I should warn you.”

  The five all became agitated and quick words were exchanged between them. Nick waited for their attention to inevitably return to him as the messenger.

  Marek looked contemplative and that moment led to Nicola speaking to him first. “You say it was a dream? It couldn’t have just been a normal dream?”

  Shaking his head, Nick explained, “I rarely sleep and more rarely dream. This was a vision. It was too clear and I could tell that it was more.”

  “Did your vision give you a clue as to where they might be?” Jake asked as Marek calmly let his people speak. The questions were probably in the clan leader’s mind as well.

  “Just woods or a forest. It was vivid, but I didn’t recognize any landmarks. I’ve begun researching the net looking for any sightings of wolves in the area. So far it’s mostly claims of coyotes, but it’s one thing for a ranger to make a statement based off of prints as opposed to some family on a picnic that sees movement in the forest.”

  Jake added, “The humans see what they think they should see. Most aren’t ready to see monsters. It’s part of how vampires have only been portrayed as fiction rather than reality.

  “If they’re told that coyotes may be moving back into the area, then that’s what they’ll believe first. Do you plan to check out every story? Werewolves aren’t likely to be bound just by a hunting territory. They are human as well. I doubt that they will be found living in the woods.”

  Nick shrugged. “I was thinking of following up on the most likely reports. The ones involving forest rangers should be most accurate. Once I find a likely area, then I suppose I just have to stake out the area on a full moon?”

  The vampires laughed at that. Marek explained why as he said, “You don’t think they run around just on a full moon, do you? Young werewolves may be bound to the cycles of the moon, but older ones learn to change when they want. It’s why vampires can’t just hunt them out when they would be in human form for twenty-seven days. They are not that vulnerable.”

  Seeing Nick’s surprise at their supposed knowledge of werewolves, Nicola added, “We had a run in with a pack a few decades ago and learned a lot. We had seen the old movies. A few maybe even read horror books, though I won’t name names,” her eyes glanced to Marek. “Anyway, we found out that they could change form by day and any night. Full moons are simply a night they can’t control themselves.

  “If you planned to stake out a full moon, you might very well find them returning to the area, but they are as intelligent as any human in either form. Well, except the moon madness times, and then they still retain at least some control. That means they could realize they’ve been too obvious or noticed and then they could change their haunts.”

  Nick leaned back into the couch in thought. Being reminded that these weren’t just monsters was a reason for coming. He had been thinking of the creatures as just beasts, but still he had little more to go on for finding a pack. If they didn’t have at least some of the instincts and habits of the wolves they became, the voran was going to have a near impossible time of finding them.

  The Mermaid’s Chest

  Chapter 10- A New Tail

  Sleep came and Phoebe knew that she dreamed, but by early morning the sleeping beauty could not remember what they had been about. Exhaustion had knocked all of the girls out almost as soon as their heads hit pillows. It had been a long day and, between the addition of the broken down boat and the discovery of the treasure room, they had been wrung out both physically and emotionally.

  Despite her exhaustion, Phoebe once again found herself awake early. Dawn’s first rays were just starting to peek through the drapes and had yet to make much of a difference in the room, but she figured that must have been enough. Being a light sleeper usually had to be playing into it at least a little, she figured. Either that or she was having a dreadful time shaking her jetlag. Since the first day she seemed to awaken around five thirty or six local time, Phoebe kind of assumed that it was just her body responding to the dawn.

  Whatever the reason for it, the girl snuck out of bed as she had the previous two mornings and went to the bathroom. Phoebe didn’t want to risk waking anyone with the shower and figured she would just wait until everyone was up again to run that, but she splashed her face with cold water and did the rest of her morning routine before changing into a comfortable pair of shorts and pink t-shirt that exposed her stomach. It was a bit warm this morning and the girl wasn’t necessarily going to wear the outfit all day anyway. She would wait for her shower to decide what to put on for the remainder of the day and that could wait.

  By the time she had found the fishing gear for her morning diversion, the early air was actually making her skin glisten with light perspiration. The air conditioning in the rental home had masked how a warm wind from the south had heated the air and moisture outside despite the darkness of night, even though her relatives kept the place in the upper seventies. With the discomfort of the warm, humid air bugging her, Phoebe deci
ded to go wading in the shallows in range of the dock instead of just sitting on its edge as she had the previous day.

  Casting from the shallows and letting the water cool her seemed like a good idea. She wasn’t wearing her swimsuit, however, so wading in above her thighs and letting her shorts get wet wasn’t in her plans. Having long legs would let her walk in deeper than her shorter cousins at least. The gear was set on the dock and Phoebe sat a moment dangling her legs inches above the water as she pulled her hair back into a tail. The extra air on her neck was much cooler than leaving her hair down to contain the heat of her body beneath it.

  Nodding to herself that she was ready, the young woman in pink and blue pushed off from the wood planks raising up to avoid any splinters in an unfortunate area. With a quiet splash, her long bronze legs sank through the water finding the soft river floor. Making a face at the muck covering her feet, Phoebe started to turn towards the dock to retrieve the fishing rod when she noticed two things: first was a blue glow from her bracelet and second was a strange tingling sensation traveling from her feet almost all the way up her body.

  The sensation wasn’t painful. In fact, it was like a thousand, cooling fish kisses. She shivered in the morning heat, but not because she was truly cold. As the young woman looked down at her legs, the blue glow from the bracelet was echoed around her legs and torso before becoming a blinding light that forced Phoebe to close her eyes.

  As the flash ended, the young woman felt her balance change. Looking down, her clothes were gone to be replaced by scales and, in the instant before she toppled over into the water, Phoebe realized in shock that her legs were gone and replaced with a blue scaled fish tail.

  A little squeak as the girl fell was halted abruptly as her head went under water in a much bigger splash.