by C. T. Phipps
“I rest my case,” Robyn said, stretching her arms out. “It’s why I’m extra cautious on birth control now unless I’m with someone pregnancy is impossible to happen with. The fact that Dryads are fertility spirits is a real case of being blessed with suck now that I think about it.”
Emma started sniffing the air.
“So what are your plans?” Robyn asked.
I looked at her. “Not sure anymore. I’m trying to study to be a shaman, but that’s not really a job that pays the bills until I learn how to know what stocks will pay out dividends. I’m also pretty sure that’s insider trading now.”
“Stupid government always getting in the way of supernaturals making themselves rich.” Robyn smirked. She was uncomfortably close and I took a step back.
Emma, meanwhile, was sniffing the side of the only other car that didn’t look like it cost more than my parents’ house. It was a white van that, normally, would have been the model of inconspicuous. “Larry and Yolanda are here.”
I blinked. “What?”
Emma growled at the car. “I smell the verbena, gun oil, and sweat.”
I walked closer and got a whiff. “Yep. Dammit. Someone should tell those people one size does not fit all with getaway vehicles.”
“Larry and Yolanda?” Robyn asked.
“Hunters,” I said, frowning. “Friends of Alex.”
“So you’re a pair of shapechangers who are friends with an FBI agent wizard who is friends with hunters. You’re also friends with a drug-dealing dragon wizard,” Robyn said.
“That’s about the size of it, yeah,” I said.
“Just wondering if I need to make a chart or worry about someone chopping me up to make a pyre for you two.”
“No, we have gasoline for our witch burnings now,” I said. “Besides, Bright Falls is more like the crazy pagan town in The Wicker Man rather than the kind of place that does witch burnings. Like ten percent of the town is weird in one way or another.”
Probably because there were so few places where that was an asset rather than a disadvantage. Whoever had chosen America to be the new supernatural homeland had seriously erred. The vampires, I supposed. The United States was the most religious Western nation on Earth as well as one of the most militant countries in the world.
As much as I loved my country tis of me, sweet land of deerbity, it was not the sort of place you wanted to reveal supernatural beings had been secretly living among you to. The fact that most supernaturals were religious and militant in their own way didn’t make it easier. Me? I would have chosen Canada to be our Promised Land.
You still live in America despite its harsh laws. A home is not chosen; it chooses you.
Shush you, I replied to the Merlin Gun. We are not bonding.
“Never saw The Wicker Man, not a big fan of Nicholas Cage.”
I immediately lowered my opinion of Robyn. I’d been referring to the classic Hammer film with Christopher Lee. “Well, let’s just go to the backdoor. On an awkwardness scale of one to ten, this should only be about an eight and a half.”
The doorway into the back of the Lyons Den was a pair of metal doors with two stocky men dressed like Secret Servicemen guarding it. There was also a security camera hanging over it that scanned everyone who might come through.
“Anything else anyone wants to add before we go see Puff the Magic Drug Dealer?”
Emma came up behind me. “I wanted to be a veterinarian, but animals are scared of me.”
I opened my mouth to say something snarky and play it off as a joke, but looking back, I could see how devastated the confession had made her. Emma had always loved animals but they’d never loved her back.
“Their loss,” I said, approaching the backdoor. “Yo, shaman business. Let me on in.”
They both stepped in front of the door. Ah, dammit, and things were going so well too.
That was when I heard a voice over the intercom beside the door, one I hadn’t even seen because the two bulky guards standing in front of it. It was feminine but harsh and full of more venom than a cobra. “You have a lot of nerve coming here, Jane Doe. I’m coming right out.”
I covered my face with my hand. “Oh joy, Deana is coming to meet us. This is going to go over like a ton of bricks.”
“Why do I get the impression you’re not that popular around here?” Robyn said, taking a seat behind me. “Reserved parking space aside.”
“Because I’m not,” I said, sighing. “Deana Parvati is Lucien’s second in command. She’s an Elemental.”
“Is that a thing?” Robyn asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s like being a wizard except you can throw around your element a lot easier than any magician, but not much else. Also, she’s Emma’s ex-girlfriend.”
Robyn did a double-take between us. “Just so I’m clear, we’re going into a nightclub the size of a hotel that is powered by evil magic—”
“You picked up on that, huh?” I asked.
“To talk to a pair of gangsters that both of that you dated.”
I snorted. “Well, when you phrase it like that, you make it sound foolish.”
Seconds later, the door opened to reveal a beautiful Indian woman with light-brown skin, black hair tied into a ponytail, and piercing dark eyes. Her wardrobe was gorgeous with a button-down shirt tied around her waist to expose amazingly perfect abs and tight, short skirt that was probably criminal in a few places. Deana had a half-dozen bracelets on each of her arms, earrings, and a belly-button ring that all radiated supernatural energy.
“Hey Deana,” I said, looking at her. “I’d say long time no see, but it’s been like a couple of months and I don’t actually like you. Really I sort of hate you, but kind of tolerated you because you were Lucien’s friend or, well, actually aren’t you like his slave or something? Because you swore allegiance to him so he wouldn’t kill you or something like that, right?”
Deana’s eyes narrowed at me.
Emma covered her face with her hands.
Robyn sniggered.
“No judgment,” I said, raising my hand. “But you were mean to Emma, so I don’t like you. Let me in, I need to talk to Lucien.”
Deana paused. “You know, I am genuinely confused on how to respond. I was going to yell at you for putting Lucien into a months-long funk. However, now I have the benefit of being able to use your incredibly rude doe-eyed rants as an excuse to keep you out. Thus thwarting whatever dangerous little excursion you’re going to involve my boss, whom I love, in.”
“It’s to solve who was responsible for that child murder pit in Shadow Pines,” I said, realizing I may have overplayed my hand.
Then again, I really hated her.
“I hate kids,” Deana said, waving. “Goodbye.”
“Please, Deana, this is important!” Emma said, clasping her hands together.
“Insult her,” Deana said.
“What?” Emma asked.
“I liked you, Emma, but you have some severe issues with your friend. If you want to meet with the boss, insult Jane. Not something stupid, either, but the kind of hurtful thing only someone who really knows someone else can say.”
“Wow, this is better than my soaps,” Robyn said, putting her hands on her hips. “Anyone got any popcorn?”
“Do it, Emma,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’m a big girl, I can take it.”
“Are you sure?” Emma said, looking sheepish.
I rolled my eyes. “Positive.”
“Okay, uh,” Emma took a deep breath. “Remember when you got your new bra and pants size and you thought it was because you were coming into your gorgeous weredeer powers? I actually think that’s just because you were really athletic and put on a few pou—”
“You are dead to me,” I said, narrowing my eyes.
“It’s a good look! Super-lean isn’t great!” Emma said, panicking.
I opened my mouth in (mock) horror.
Deana burst out laughing. “Oh, I’d forgotten how amusing
you two were. Also, you’ve seemingly added a new member to your all-girl comedy troop. Come on in, the boss is waiting.”
“He is?” I asked.
Deana nodded. “Oh yeah, he told me to let you in. The hunters said they were supposed to meet with you before they gave him their plans to kill the cultists in town.”
Chapter Nine
The interior of the Lyons Den was built to look like a deconsecrated church with stone balconies, stone gargoyles, stained-glass windows, and so on—it overlooked a massive cross-shaped dance floor with shimmering lights as well as fog machines. There was a massive bar on every level with a remixed version of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” by The Bauhaus laying in the background.
It was packed to the rim with beautiful people dressed in black and white, with every day being Halloween here. Quite a few of them looked a lot more attractive than the people in the lines outside, and I could feel the energy of the place making everyone feel sexy as well as dangerous. It was a mild glamour, but part of the experience you paid for in order to experience Lucien’s world.
To use the power of Hell as makeup and cologne, Raguel grumbled. That is akin to using an atomic bomb to remove vermin.
Overkill but effective? I suggested.
Yes.
“Wow,” Robyn said, walking up behind us. “This is not like any goth nightclub I’ve ever been in. Those are mostly just people’s basements with some fake cobwebs.”
“It’s a place of power,” Deana said, her voice cold and businesslike. Somehow I could still hear her over the din outside, though. “The boss feeds on the sexual and illicit energies generated here. It makes him a more powerful sorcerer.”
“Which he uses to, what, make an even bigger nightclub?” I asked. “Read what stocks are going to be good tomorrow? Forge iron daggers to raise his Smithing score?”
Deana didn’t respond.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I asked.
“Not about the iron daggers,” Deana said, looking like she was more annoyed she had no idea what I was talking about than the quip itself. “The boss has been somewhat aimless since achieving his revenge against the O’Henry family.”
Robyn looked at Emma. “Is this another thing I should have known about?”
“No, he doesn’t want to kill me!” Emma said cheerfully. “Just my family!”
Robyn shook her head and picked up a bottle of tequila as well as a glass from a barely dressed waiter passing us by.
“Don’t rob our hosts,” I said, not even bothering to turn to look when I heard it.
“I’m part plant, I need watering,” Robyn said, pouring herself a drink.
She had me there.
Our group arrived at pair of luxurious wooden doors where a pair of French maids who didn’t breathe opened for us. Beyond, there was a massive apartment I took to be Lucien’s with an oversized flat-screen television filling an entire wall, massive drapes blocking out the sun, marble floors, a huge fireplace (that was just a wall computer screen showing flames), and an enormous pair of black leather couches in front of a canopy bed that was three times the size of a normal one.
Lucien was sitting on one of the couches, lounging between two barely dressed punk women with more piercings and tattoos than an issue of Revolver magazine. One of them I recognized as Marish, a local musician who turned into a cougar (in the eats-deer, not-attractive-older-woman sense) while the other was her blue-haired and equally feline band mate Felicia.
Lucien Lyons was the only man I ever knew to be as supernaturally attractive as the Gifted women of Bright Falls. He had shining shoulder-length silver Targaryen-style white hair, skin that was almost alabaster, a lean, sculpted frame, and cheekbones you could cut your hand on. He also didn’t mind showing it off, either, wearing no shirt and a pair of leather pants. He had a tattoo of an ankh on his right pec as well as a dragon eating its own tail on his stomach.
Almost as an afterthought, I looked over to the second couch where Larry and Yolanda were standing. The two hunters had changed into “normal” clothes, which made them stand out like a pair of sore thumbs in the surreal stylized death-metal-video world in which Lucien lived. Yolanda looked especially comfortable, probably because she was surrounded by supernaturals as much as Lucien’s Alice Cooper lifestyle. Well, the fictional Alice Cooper, not the one who was a reverend in real life.
“I have brought the shaman and her friends, boss,” Deana said, acting like he was a prince more than the local crime boss. Then again, Lucien had a palace, army, and owned a small kingdom. He was as good a match for it as anyone I knew. It’s just he was more Mordred by way of Stuart Townsend than Arthur.
Lucien didn’t look at me, instead stretching out his hand and summoning Robyn’s tequila bottle to him telekinetically.
“Hey, I stole that fair and square!” Robyn said, looking sideways at his abs. “Okay, hold on, I forgot what I was talking about.”
“He has that effect on people,” Emma said. “I mean, I don’t get it-get it, but he is pretty to look at.”
Lucien took a long drink of the tequila bottle then looked at his shapechanger companions. “Out, girls, this is a private meeting.”
Both women shrugged then got up, grabbing their jackets and walking past me. It was clear that their relationship wasn’t particularly deep, if not outright professional.
“Bye Felicia,” I said, waving at the blue-haired girl as she departed.
Felicia gave me the bird with both middle fingers as she left.
Classy. It was good to see that Lucien’s taste remained consistent.
You just insulted yourself, Raguel said.
Dammit, I did, didn’t I?
Lucien put a pair of sunglasses on over his moon-colored eyes. He looked right at me then Deana then everyone else in my part. “Jane, must you antagonize everyone you meet?”
“Lucien, you know me. Yes. Yes, I must.”
“Hell, I’ve known her an hour and I know that,” Robyn said before laughing.
I ignored Robyn. “Yeah, well, Lucien, we need your help. I need your help. Alex needs your help. The whole town needs your help and you’re going to give it.”
Lucien took another swig of tequila. “Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around today. I’m not sure if I’m feeling any of it.”
“We were here first,” Yolanda said, her voice capturing the sort of anger only a woman thoroughly unimpressed with Lucien could manage. It was something I’d never heard of from anyone who’d met him.
“This is not a first-come, first-serve situation, hunters,” I snapped at them. “This is a ranked-by-authority-comes-first one. Who is the shaman of Bright Falls? Defender from all things dark and oogie-boogie?”
Emma leaned up and whispered in my ear, “They’d take you a lot more seriously if you didn’t use words like ‘oogie-boogie’.”
“No, we wouldn’t,” Deana said, having overheard Emma despite her whispering.
“Your mother is the shaman of the town,” Lucien said, staring at me. “You’re the self-appointed shaman of the city.”
“And I am the one people are gonna call when they call….Spiritbusters?” I said, wondering if that actually worked as a line.
No, it didn’t, did it? Oh well, they couldn’t all be winners.
Lucien propped his elbow on the arm of his couch then put his head in his palm, looking at me with a bored expression on his face. I could tell he was trying to cover up what he was feeling but I couldn’t say exactly what that was. “Larry and Yolanda want my help in killing an evil wizard visiting the town with his bunch of cultists. He’s apparently immortal, so that makes it a bit tricky. Are you going to back up their claims my FBI rules-abiding brother has become a man interested in contract murder?”
It was a trick question, of course, so I just told the truth. “I think your brother has always cared about the spirit of the law more than he’s cared about the letter.”
“So he’d be up for us just blowing up the Lumberjack Motel wit
h all of them inside?” Deana said.
Just a reminder, Deana is evil. She is a murderer many times over as well as a thief and liar. You could slay her with my power.
I’ll keep that in mind, I said, not at all interested in killing Lucien’s major domo. However, it’ll take more than her calling me fat to get me to kill her.
You’re a perfectly healthy weight for your size. Just because you’ve put on a few—
Do not say another word! I mentally shouted. Cherry pie with whipped cream is delicious and pure! It was worth it and I will slay all who say otherwise!
The angel older than modern man backed down and said no more.
Good, I thought. Now let me handle this.
“That’s not why I’m here,” I said, closing my eyes. “I think Dr. Jones is dangerous and looking after something horrible but I’m here to get your help in stopping the thing that killed all those kids in Shadow Pine Park.”
“The Brotherhood of the Tree and the Dryad,” Lucien said.
“Yeah!” I said before pausing as his words registered with me. “Wait, what?”
“You knew?” Yolanda stood up, growling. “You knew about this thing!”
“Stand down.” Deana conjured a trio of icicles in the air that floated as if ready to impale her.
I pulled out my gun and aimed it at her. “Step the hell away.”
The icicles turned to me as Emma transformed into a half-woman, half-wolf creature that stood a foot taller than Deana and almost two feet taller than me. It lacked all of Emma’s mercy and in a second, I suspected it would knock Deana’s head clean off.
That was when the doors opened again and Dr. Gerald Pasteur, the town’s only vampire, walked in with a Chinese girl in a goth-cheerleader outfit. Gerald was, in his own way, shockingly beautiful, and probably the third handsomest man I’d ever seen off of TV. He had black hair, luminescent skin, and wore a white doctor’s coat even outside of his office.
The girl caused me to blink, as it took me a second to recognize Elena Chang from my high-school years. She’d been in one of our class of two hundred and I couldn’t say I knew her very well, but I did know her. Her eyes were predatory now, and cold, while her skin had the slightly papery texture regular humans didn’t notice on vampires but shapechangers did. Elena had been transformed into the town’s second vampire.