“This is a family business . . . awkward,” I gulped.
I mean, if my three daughters were whores fucking rich, privileged men, and women, and I was their pimp; that was just a recipe for dysfunctional.
“Supernatural sex creatures,” I reminded myself, and followed in Thomas’s wake to where they’d clustered around the monitors.
What I saw was not good. The strip mall hadn’t exactly been packed when we arrived, but the few people who had been shopping were being hurried out of stores by armed men. There was a lot of shouting, waving, and people getting the hell out of dodge. It took less than five minutes before everything was cleared out and the other shops were boarded up. They knew the drill in this town.
Over the next ten minutes, truck after truck of people showed up. They rode in like desperados in the back of pickups; all armed in the clear light of day, and didn’t give two shits who knew it. They formed a rough perimeter around the brothel, and just seemed to sit there waiting for someone to tell them what to do.
I stopped counting at fifty goons. I was pretty sure we could take them together, but it was going to be a bloody mess.
“The peace didn’t last long,” Thomas sighed, more exasperated than afraid; which was how I absolutely knew we could take these yahoos.
Three mages, an incubus, three imps, and a half-Aesir, half-Fae, half-mage, half whatever the fuck I was . . . no problemo. Then, Ariana hissed. She sounded like a pissed off cobra, and I followed her eyes to the latest car to arrive. This wasn’t some beat-up truck. This was a luxury sedan, and out of the driver’s seat hopped . . .
“Claws,” I cursed.
Everyone turned to look at me. “We’ve met,” I pointed at the monitor. “I sort of dropkicked her skinny ass last night.”
That earned me a look of respect from Thomas, and another look from his daughters that told me if I wasn’t careful, they’d eat me alive, and I’d love it.
“Isabella Fontaine,” Thomas informed. “A shifter from a long, distinguished line of werewolves native to this area.”
“What the hell is she doing being the local crack whore to Duke What’s His Face?” I asked.
“She’s addicted to their saliva,” Ariana supplied.
“She is Santiago’s chosen plaything,” Ivanna confirmed
“She killed our sister,” Lucia whispered, and everyone went silent.
“She also murdered most of her own family. Tore out their throats in the night, and burned the rest alive,” Thomas supplied. “She might not look like much, but she is a skilled, dangerous enforcer. You got lucky, Dupree.”
I preferred to call it skill, but I nodded anyway. “Don’t get mad, get even,” I looked back at the monitors.
The imp sisters looked at me again, and they probably would have fucked me six ways to Sunday if daddy wasn’t sitting there.
“So, what do we do now?” I turned to Thomas.
Whatever part of me had said the incubus was a threat had subsided. I still didn’t like him, but now I saw him as an ally. We had an enemy in common, it was his territory, and he knew the terrain; so, it was only wise to follow his lead.
“I’ll get on the sat phone and call my mother. Ariana, Ivanna, get our guests armed and ready. Lucia, stay with our clients and make sure no harm comes to them,” Thomas gave out orders, and the imps responded in a blur as he turned back to face me. “Now, we fight.”
I couldn’t help but give him a wolfish smile and nod. “Now, we kill them all.”
Chapter 10
There was something incredibly sexy about watching a woman load a gun; and it had nothing to do with holding the power of life and death in her hands. Every man knew they already held the power of life and death between their legs. My eyes were locked on Ariana as Thomas’s most well-endowed daughter pulled an assault rifle from a locked rack and started locking and loading.
Her arms rippled with lean muscle as she hefted the gun to her shoulder and sighted the weapon. A red dot appeared on a target on the far wall, and when she moved the rifle, the dot moved with it. She repositioned the rifle, and her stomach tightened in response; highlighting her abs, and the V that pointed from her hips down to her crotch. She grabbed a preloaded magazine from a stack and slammed it into the well at the bottom of the rifle; causing her tits to bounce delightfully.
“Holy gun porn, Batman,” my jaw dropped as I watched her. The thought was closely followed by, “Gods, man, get your shit together. We’re literally under siege and your too busy ogling the girl to . . .”
“Catch,” she stated as she threw the loaded rifle at me.
I didn’t know much about guns, but I assumed it was common sense not to throw them around like a death-dealing frisbee. I was so busy thinking with my dick I bobbled the catch. Fae gifts didn’t mean much if I wasn’t paying attention. I winced as the rifled smacked into me before I settled it in what I thought was the appropriate position.
“So, where are we going?” I asked as I pivoted around and . . .
“Whoa!” Ivanna grabbed the barrel and jerked it up as I faced her. I didn’t miss how the sudden motion played havoc with her sports bra.
She glared at me in response. “You don’t point this at anyone unless you intend to kill them,” she commanded.
“Yeah, duh,” I acted like I knew that, but it didn’t fool anyone.
“Do you even know how to use that?” Ariana asked as she went through the rapid loading of two more rifles, donned a tactical vest, and started stuffing spare magazines into pouches.
I took the hint, and walked over to put on my own vest. “Sure,” I smiled confidently. “You point this end at the bad guys and pull the trigger when the red dot is on them.”
Four sets of eyes turned on me, wide with shock, a few jaws dropped, and not in a good way. “Seriously?” I didn’t see who asked it.
They clearly weren’t impressed with my answer. I scowled at them defiantly. “How hard can it be?”
“Take him,” Thomas sighed, and ignored his daughter’s hard looks. “Just make sure he doesn’t kill anyone we don’t want dead,” he said in a whisper that I probably wasn’t supposed to hear.
“Give me a break,” I growled. “I only got a week’s worth of training at Caesars. Sorry if I didn’t get the US Army’s abridged, infantry tactics course.”
I didn’t have time to open my mouth and bitch. Ariana and Ivanna were already decked out in their gear; gear that would have men all over the country lining up at the recruiter’s office to be all they could be. I grabbed my vest in one hand, a bunch of clips in the other, and followed them toward a staircase at the very back of the building.
We all took the stairs three at a time, and burst onto the roof. It was flat, black, and sweltering under the sun. Heavy AC units and other industrial equipment were scattered around the space, but other than that, it was just like any other roof in the country. The one plus I could see was the three-foot rise at the edge; likely, a great way to keep people from falling off the roof. In our case, the half-foot-thick stone would be an excellent way to stop inbound bullets.
I really wished I could go a day without someone, or something, trying to kill me; but today didn’t look like my lucky day. The two imps jogged over to the edge facing the strip mall’s parking lot, and dropped into a crouch as they peered over the edge. Careful to stay behind cover, they started laying out their extra magazines so they were easy to reach.
“Where do you want me?” I asked, as I knelt beside them.
“My sister and I will be the main fighting force,” Ariana – she had to be the oldest, she definitely had an oldest sibling vibe going on – replied as she pulled an earpiece from her vest and stuck it in her ear.
“Coms check,” she stated.
I saw Ivanna do the same thing, and quickly pulled out my own earbud. I rammed it roughly into my ear. The worst thing that could happen was it falling out at an inopportune moment. I shouldn’t have worried. Once in my ear, the bud expanded like a foam b
alloon until it was nice and snug.
“Dupree, do you read me?” Thomas’s voice echoed.
“Ten-four, roger-roger, I read you five-by-five,” I replied with a grin. Both imps rolled their eyes, and turned their attention back to the parking lot.
“Dupree, I’ll direct you to where we need the extra firepower based on what I see on the cameras. Do you understand?”
In my experience, Thomas had always been serious, but now there was a bit extra in his tone.
“Sure thing,” I replied.
The incubus giving me orders still grated on me, but it had dawned on me I knew jackshit about this type of warfare. When things got down to hand-to-hand, then I’d do whatever the fuck I wanted.
“I’m going to orient you to the battlefield,” Thomas continued. “The parking lot is our north, and I take it you’re smart enough to figure out the rest,” his voice was practically drowning in sarcasm. “I will yell cardinal directions to alert you to enemy movements. Clear?”
“Crystal,” I shot back.
“Can I shoot something now?” the thought, and the excitement behind it, came out of nowhere.
I shook my head, took a few deep breaths, and found my center. I might have to wait hours before the enemy tried anything. If I was them, I’d hit us at night. Not in the middle of the afternoon. Even with the businesses cleared out, there were too many people to get away with a battle this large only a few miles from the heart of the city. Not even Tijuana was that bad.
Surprisingly, I didn’t have to wait long.
“Dupree, check south,” Thomas ordered.
I hustled over in a duck walk to avoid raising my profile above the half wall. I might not be good at this type of fighting, but I was pretty good at avoiding getting shot in the ass. I hurried to the center of the south wall and quickly popped my head up. Unlike the parking lot, it was virtually empty. A fence, topped with barbed wire, separated the gym’s outer wall from the street. There were a few foot soldiers loitering around, but none were looking at me. Their job wasn’t to shoot. It was to keep us trapped inside, and keep unwanted people out.
I ducked back down after a few seconds of looking. “I don’t see anything,” I radioed back.
“Look again in three, two, one,” the incubus counted down.
I popped up at one and saw what was coming. It was a pickup truck like any of the dozens of models that had delivered troops to the parking lot. However, this one was empty, and I felt a twinge coming from it.
“Magic pickup,” I replied back, and slowly set my gun on top of the half wall. “Want me to pump it full of lead?”
I had visions of the car driving into the side of the gym and exploding. Humans normally didn’t have the strength, speed, or magic of supernaturals; but they had plenty of ways to make things go boom. They made that abundantly clear anytime they fought a war.
“No.” I could hear his exasperation on the other end, but I had so many more military movie cliches locked and loaded. “Just observe and report.”
The truck loitered at the corner for a second, where the driver talked with one of the goons, before making a turn. It drove along the southern length of the complex before turning up the east side.
“Coming your way,” I told the imps, turned to join them, and stopped. “Wait . . .”
I’d almost missed it because it blended with the roadway, but the back of the pickup was dumping something black on the asphalt. If it wasn’t for the splash kicked up against the back of the red truck, I never would have noticed.
“It’s dumping something on the ground,” I relayed to anyone who could figure it out.
Having lived in the salt belt of upstate New York, I had plenty of experience in watching trucks dump stuff on roads. Every time it snowed, plows would come by spewing sand and salt. This wasn’t that. Whatever they were dumping was giving me the magical tingles.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” the car had already disappeared up along the east side of the building.
Apparently, Thomas had the same feeling. “Kill it.”
The imps fired in concert, so close together I only heard one crack. I didn’t see what happened, but I heard the result. There was a screech of tires, a crunch of compressed metal, and then the air filled with gunfire.
“Motherfucker!” Ariana yelled as chips of wall started flying all over the place. “Shift!” she screamed over the gunfire.
The sisters slid down the wall with a dancer’s grace while I figured out what the hell to do. I know what my mind screamed at me to do: “Shoot someone!”
I popped up along the south wall and sighted on the goons. It was not a target rich environment, so I aimed at the one who’d talked to the truck’s driver. He had to be important, right? The little red dot appeared on him, but if it wasn’t for my Fae gifts, I never would have been able to see it.
“Gotcha,” I pulled the trigger when I had it lined up with his chest.
The rifle bucking in my hands surprised me, but not as much as the back of the goon’s head exploding, and showering the adobe sidewall of a convenience store with his brains.
“Ha!” I thrust my fist in the air. “I got him,” I turned to yell to the imps. I decided not to mention I missed where I’d aimed by about a foot and a half. “I killed some dude that . . .”
I heard the zip of the first round flying past my head, followed by pain. I wasn’t hit, and even if I was, it likely wouldn’t penetrate my troll-empowered skin. However, I was surprised, and it knocked me on my ass when the second round broke off a piece of stone wall and smashed it into my face just below my eye.
I nearly dropped my rifle over the side of the building, but the stock was heavier than the barrel, so it tipped back and clattered to the roof. I just sat there for a moment in shock as more bullets chewed up the side of the gym trying to avenge the goon.
“You good, Dupree?” Ariana asked. The sisters had posted up at either edge of the north wall, and were popping up occasionally to get a shot at the truck.
“Yeah, tally hoe,” I shook off the hit.
“Good. Now get your ass over here,” she snapped. “We slowed it down, but that truck isn’t down yet.”
I scrambled back across the roof to the north wall, and took a position midway between the two women. The occasional shot was still coming our way, but nothing as serious as before.
“The truck is halfway up the street, with its front up the ass of some poor Prius. Driver is dead, but it’s still operatable. It’s a bad angle to kill the engine, so we just need to kill replacement drivers until they give up,” Ivanna informed.
She spun smoothly, went up on a knee, aimed, fired, and returned to cover in a blur. From below, I heard a man scream in pain, and the rate of fire coming back at us increase.
“They’re fucking amateurs,” Ariana stated, but her face was split in a wide grin. She was loving this, and, I realized, my expression echoed hers.
“Hot damn if ranged combat isn’t a party. My turn,” I tried to emulate Ivanna . . . but . . . I figure you can guess how that turned out.
I pivoted and brought up my weapon quick enough, but it took me a half second to find the truck, and another half second to realize no one was running toward it. I scanned for a target, but everyone down below was doing the same thing we were up here; putting cover and concealment between them and bullets.
I spent a second longer than I should up and looking for something to shoot. There was a snap, and then pain. A lot more than when the chip of wall had sucker punched me in the face. It knocked me flat on my back, and I groaned as I ran my fingers across my chest. There was a nice, small hole in the vest, and I pulled a flattened bullet from where it had nestled into my skin.
“Ow. That’s gonna leave a mark,” it would stop hurting in a few minutes, and the bruise would fade inside an hour, but it royally pissed me off. I mean . . . I was Aveena-level pissed.
“Who the fuck do these little shits think they are? They think they could
shoot at me? They think they can fight me? I’ll show these little jerkoffs what it means to take on Cameron Dupree,” I nearly lost my shit.
I wanted to jump over the side, leap the wall protecting the gym, and go full Hulk on these assholes. Something deep down inside me pushed me to do it, begged me, and whispered in my ear that I could not be defeated.
“Hey,” Ariana’s face appeared above mine, and her cute, button nose shifted my thoughts in a different direction.
She must have seen something in my eyes. “Down tiger, maybe if we get out of this alive; but from what I hear, you’re pretty expensive.”
The same part of me that warred between ripping people to shreds, or ripping off the imp’s clothes, purred in satisfaction at the compliment. Then, I shook my head, and got my shit together.
“What is wrong with me?”
I could understand the occasional surge of lust. Afterall, I was a succubus’s First; it kind of came with the job description. I couldn’t afford to do stupid shit in the middle of a fight. Lilith couldn’t afford that, and Butters and company downstairs sure as shit couldn’t pay for my mistakes. I needed to get my head in the fucking game.
Ivanna spun and opened fire again. A quick three-round burst echoed from her rifle, but this time, she dove away from her position. A second later, a loud boom echoed through the sky, and a giant hole blasted through the wall where the blonde imp had been a moment before.
“Please tell me you saw where that was coming from?” Ariana asked over the radio as she dragged me away from where I’d been shot.
“Negative,” Thomas sounded just as frustrated as his daughter looked. “He must have repositioned farther away. Can you shoot a back azimuth?”
Ariana looked to her sister. “Sorry,” the blonde shook her head. “I was busy trying to keep all the important squishy bits inside my body.”
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