The couple had gotten her bed, so Abby slept on the couch. She was typically an early riser, but she still found herself waking up to a household that was already in motion, a strange experience for her own apartment. As she shifted on the couch to a sitting position, she noticed the apartment was cleaner. She was normally good about cleaning, but between the randomness of Dane's adventures and catching other stories for Authentic Avalon, she had been going out at odd hours and leaving things undone. But now her apartment was immaculate, something that also confused her cat, Precious, who was warily looking from under a side table.
A bowl was thrust into Abby's hands. "Eat!" said Meilin as she returned to the kitchen. Abby hadn't gotten a good look at Meilin at the shop. She was a fox like Wong, so her appearance altered with her whims and her moods. She always had dark hair, and Abby thought she always looked mysteriously beautiful. Abby had also always seen her wearing something white, even if it was only something tying back her hair, as it was now. Her mouth was smaller, nothing like the huge grin her husband typically had, her emotions almost understated compared to her husband's grand and jovial gestures. Abby thought them a strange match, but she had barely ever interacted with Meilin, so her impressions of the woman could be very wrong.
Abby looked down at the bowl full of rice, a fried egg, and green onions. "I didn't even have rice or green onions in the pantry..."
"Meilin decided that your kitchen wasn't up to her standards, so she went out to the store before you got up," said Wong from behind her. He was still appearing nondescript, a sign of how uncomfortable he still was. He also looked somewhat drained. He was sitting at the table in her tiny dining nook, but there was no food in front of him.
Abby looked at the clock and saw that it was barely eight in the morning. "But it's so early!"
"We don't need to sleep much," said Wong with a sigh. "And worrying isn't helping us. Thanks again for letting us stay, by the way. I hope we don't infuriate you too quickly."
Abby shook her head. "If Dane's on a case, I doubt I'll be here much. Add to that the Thousand Hands situation, and... well, if you can feed Precious for me, that would be great."
"She hasn't quite warmed up to us," said Wong. "Our shape shifting doesn't always fool cats, so she might not understand what two large foxes are doing in her territory."
"I could see the issue there," said Abby.
Wong shook his hand in the air to dismiss the issue. "It'll be fine. I've always had a way with animals. I'm one myself, right? She'll warm up to me in no time. Nothing to worry about."
"Drink your tea," said Meilin sternly, putting a steaming mug on the coffee table in front of Abby before returning to the kitchen.
Abby stared at the mug for a while. She hadn't yet touched the eggs or rice either.
"What is it?" asked Wong.
"It's not that I don't appreciate the breakfast, but I'm not used to being served in my own home. Especially with things I didn't even buy," said Abby.
Wong shrugged. "When anxious, everyone has things they do to try to get more control of life, even if it doesn't help their problems. Meilin cooks and cleans. She likes owning a kitchen and straightening her territory. She used to have a restaurant until it was stressing her out too much."
"What do you do when anxious?" said Abby.
"Me? I worry," said Wong.
"You don't seem like a worrier," said Abby. "You're typically one of the most amusing people I know. It's odd to see you not smiling."
Wong grimaced, almost half smiling. "So I guess you can see how little I usually worry."
"Or how much you're worrying now," said Abby.
"Also true," he said. A moment after meeting her gaze, he dropped his eyes again and the amusement left his face.
"Eat! Drink! It's time to get up and do things!" called Meilin from the kitchen. "I'm putting some coffee for Dane in a travel mug. Extra sugar!"
"It's too early for Dane to be up," said Abby.
"Then go wake him!" called Meilin. "We're homeless and Jaya's garage was busted open. This is no time for him to be sleeping!"
Abby actually agreed with Meilin. After the mess at Jaya's garage, she expected that Dane and her would be up all night searching for leads. But Dane was very concerned about Jaya being wounded. Abby expected that might be because of some guilt from previous experiences between the two, but that was her conjecture. Jaya had let herself be bandaged up by the paramedics, but categorically refused to be taken the hospital. When their suggestions became more forceful, she yelled at them to get off her property. Abby had tried to smooth over the situation with paramedics by saying that her and Dane would be watching Jaya. It didn't seem to satisfy the paramedics until Abby apologized profusely for Jaya's rude words.
Once Jaya had been patched up and they had walked her up to her bedroom, Dane got to work investigating. Nearly everything in the garage had been destroyed. Dane had shed a tear over the coffee maker robot, but otherwise walked carefully through the wreckage searching for clues. When that failed to produce anything of note besides twisted metal, debris, and wolf fur, he moved outside. The giant gaping hole in the street was the elephant in the room. It had been cordoned off by the police and city services. They had cleared up the few wrecked motorcycles, but glass, metal, and other bits of debris were all over. No bikers had been found or arrested; those that had been knocked off their bikes by the serpent had made their own hasty retreat. It was hard for Dane to find many clues with the police tape blocking him and the only light the throbbing red and blue flashes of the police cars. What he did find was a patch that had been torn off a motorcycle jacket. This confirmed what Jaya had seen on her monitors. The name of the motorcycle club the bikers belonged to was The Howling Rebels. Unfortunately, that meant nothing to Dane, other than the amusing-for-a-half-second pun on their werewolf nature.
It was at this point where Dane exhausted what he could do immediately. He had no good lead on the bikers other than their name, no idea why the serpent had followed him, and for that matter, no idea of what to do about the Thousand Hands. Realizing he had run out on Wong in his hour of need, he had sent Abby back to Chinatown to get Wong and Meilin out of their home.
Meanwhile, he went back up to Jaya's living quarters above the garage and confirmed Jaya was resting, getting her ibuprofen and PM medicine. He said he'd be in her living room if she needed him. Then he sat down on the couch and made some calls.
First was to Mikkel Nowak.
"What do you know about werewolves?" said Dane as soon as Mikkel picked up.
Mikkel sighed audibly. "Werewolves? Never seen one. Heard rumors of people dealing with them elsewhere, but never in Avalon."
"So you don't think they exist?" said Dane.
"Szandor doesn't. For my own part, I really don't know. But it's never come up, y'know? On our jobs it always ended up to be something else. It's very possible... What?" said Mikkel, responding to someone there with him. "Yeah, okay. So Szandor says he would love to kill a werewolf. He doesn't think they exist, but would absolutely love to be proven wrong so he could take one down and..." He paused, listening for a moment. "Mount it on the wall. Yes, my brother wants to mount a werewolf... no, just a werewolf head on the wall. Does that at all answer what you need to know?"
"No," said Dane. He didn't need werewolves killed. He always avoided killing whenever possible. And even if the younger Nowak brother wanted to kill a werewolf, Szandor had no experience, so he wouldn't be helpful, just muscle. "But thanks for the help."
"No problem," said Mikkel. "We're heading out of town for a while, FYI, so we won't be able to take you underground if you need it."
"I think we're good," said Dane. "Thanks."
The next call was to Alastair, Dane's occultist associate. Dane waited many rings, but Alastair never picked up, nor did it go to voice mail. Alastair hated talking on the phone and especially hated answering one. He would use it only under duress. Sometimes he claimed he hated the devices, other times he cla
imed he was busy. One time he suggested it might be bugged, which Dane thought might be one of the more honest answers, since he knew Alastair dealt with some questionable people and some not necessarily legal deals. But he had never hurt anyone as far as Dane knew, so Dane still considered him an ally. If that ever changed...
Dane already knew it was too late to call Linda, especially since he didn't think she could help him much. She was a long shot resource, but if he found out nothing else about werewolves, she might be his only bet. So that was another visit for tomorrow. That didn't leave him with a lot of leads. The Sphere was stolen, the serpent was gone, the werewolf bikers had disappeared.
Sighing and leaning back on Jaya's couch, he missed the Ghost Greaser. That was a case he could sink his teeth into. Nobody hurt, nothing urgent. But now Wong was in danger and Jaya had been attacked, both by people he didn't know anything about. And he still never found that armor that he had been sent to find.
His cup runneth over with problems but the leads were few. Too few.
Abby showed up far too early for Dane's liking, finding him sleeping face down on Jaya's living room couch. But she had brought coffee, so he couldn't be too mad. With the coffee making robot numbering among the fallen, there was no coffee to be had at Jaya's. Dane warmed his hands on the coffee mug after the first sip, feeling the tingle of sugar and caffeine as it lit up his brain. He drank the rest greedily. Abby knew him well enough to wait until he was ready to talk.
"I needed that," said Dane. "Is there more?"
"Just the one mug," said Abby with a small amount of exasperation, but not much, since she had practically expected this. "But we can get more on the way - which is another good reason for us to get a move on. What's our next play?"
"Run off foolishly in the wrong direction, get lucky, somehow save the day despite the costs," said Jaya from the doorway. She was wearing pajama pants and a tank top. There was a bandage on her cheek and a large swath of them on her shoulder. That arm lay slack. She held the doorframe with her other arm for support.
Dane rose immediately. "You should be in bed resting!"
"And you should be out saving the world," said Jaya. She made shooing motions toward Dane with her good arm. "I'm not going to be babied in my own home." She started walking across the room, but it was slow and it was obvious her shoulder hurt with each step. Dane rose and gave her support. "Maybe a little help would be nice," she said with a reluctant and grimacing smile.
"Let me put you on the couch," said Dane.
Jaya shook her head. "Take me down to the garage. I have work to do."
"The garage is a mess right now," said Abby.
"Then clearly I need to clean it up," said Jaya.
"It can wait," said Dane.
"But I can't," said Jaya. "I don't want to spend the day in bed. I'm going to do something, and that means I'm tinkering."
"But all your machines are... um... not together," said Abby.
"I saw at least one workbench intact down there," said Jaya. "That's enough to get me started. Come, Jeeves!" she said to Dane, who still held onto her, "take me to the garage!"
Reluctantly, Dane helped her down the stairs into the garage. Guiding her around the debris, with Abby clearing the way with a broom, they took Jaya to the last workbench. Dane grabbed an intact stool and placed it near the workbench.
"I usually stand," said Jaya as she eased slowly onto the stool, "but desperate times..." Her hands found a screwdriver and a random piece of one of the other machines that ended up on this workbench during the fight. Her hands seemed to have a life of their own as they immediately set to work tinkering with the part. Her wounded arm moved slower and more hesitantly, but the shoulder wound seemed to not be holding her back. Dane and Abby watched for a minute, looking for a sign that she needed help or that she couldn't do this.
"I don't need you two hovering over me," said Jaya finally, not taking her eyes from her work.
"We just wanted to make sure -" started Abby.
"Fireball Phil's BBQ Shack," said Jaya.
"What?" said Abby.
"You're probably going to try to find those bikers and their motorcycle club," said Jaya. "I've worked on a few Harleys in my time, and I've had a few club members and enthusiasts as customers. I've never been, but Phil's is the place the clubs like to eat and show off. I hear their brisket is good. Avoid the beans and sauce, though."
"But you're still -" started Dane.
"And if you missed it, that was me telling you both to get out," said Jaya.
"But -" started Dane again.
"Out!" said Jaya.
Outside on the street, Dane and Abby took one last look at the garage and its broken door. For now, cardboard was taped over the hole in the door, but Jaya had made some calls and workmen would be over today to fix it.
"I should be..." said Dane.
"She'll be fine," said Abby. "She said she'd be fine. And while I'm concerned about her too, she can take care of herself better than us. Than me, at least. I just hope to be as tough as her one day. Maybe."
Dane nodded. "You're right. I need to focus on our next move. And get some coffee. I could kill for another cup right now. Do you know any place around here than has a decent cup?"
"So what is our next move?" asked Abby as she followed Dane down the street, his eyes scanning the street for a place to get coffee.
"I wish I could have been there," said Dane, coming to a halt to eye the cracked hole in the street where the serpent had broken through.
"The snake-thing?" said Abby. "Don't tell me we're going after it." Police tape still surrounded the broken hole in the asphalt, but that wasn't the sort of thing to deter Dane. However, other than descending into the depths, Abby didn't know what they'd do if the tape wasn't there. She didn't want to try to hunt down that serpent. That was a job for more skilled people than her.
Dane shook his head sadly. "As much as I'm intrigued, I don't think that's our lead. The Avalon underground is too vast and we're unprepared for the serpent. And the sad fact about it is that the serpent is not the thing that's hurting our friends. I'd want to deal with the bikers and the Thousand Hands first. Then if there's any more room in our day, we can maybe get a boat and harpoon ourselves a serpent."
"How are we going to deal with Thousand Hands?" said Abby. "I have Wong and his wife at my apartment. They're safe for now, but obviously they can't live there forever. But how do we even deal with all that? From how Wong talked, the Thousand Hands aren't some weird villain or escaped creature. They're some sort of ethnic cleansing. I don't even know if that is something we can handle."
"I know," said Dane. "And I'm bothered by the fact that I have no plan or idea yet. So we'll tackle that second. First bikers and the Sphere."
"So we're going to this barbecue place?"
"Priorities, Abby, first is more coffee!"
The second sunny day after a long wet stretch during Avalon's rainy spring made it a great weekend to get outside. So while Dane and Abby reached Fireball Phil's BBQ Shack just before noon, it was quite busy for early on a Saturday. Everyone wanted to take advantage of the day before the rains started again.
Phil's was outside of New Avalon in the split suburb of Huskerville. Right off the highway on the Husks side - the bad side - Phil's catered to bikers, out of towners driving into town or coming from the airport, as well as residents of the Ville. It was known to all the local bikers as the place to meet, socialize, and show off your ride. Almost all of the local motorcycle clubs met there, whether they were small weekender clubs, large multistate organizations, or the unfriendly gangs. Luckily New Avalon hadn't been claimed as territory by any nationwide outlaw club, so Avalon was neutral ground for all clubs, something that was well liked and which gave the club culture a generally friendlier atmosphere.
The sign for Fireball Phil's was on a pole high above the place so that it could be seen from the highway and far down the road. The words were outlined in red and yellow neon, mock fla
mes behind the words also created with neon. Though the establishment was named a "shack", it was far more than that. Easily equal to the size of any of the chain bistros that dotted the interstate, Phil's was quite a big place. It had ample parking, but much of that was taken up by an endless array of motorcycles, setup like tempting dominoes. But woe to he who would start that chain reaction of misery.
Phil's was often thought of as one of Avalon's best barbecue restaurants, though local purists and snobs scoffed. Phil's had large smoking pits but also used sauce on their meat, catering to two different regional preferences, thus never satisfying any barbecue fanatic who would fight for their local style as the only "true" barbecue. Regardless of how you preferred it, not even the most cynical would fail to concede that Phil's beef ribs and brisket were things of beauty that tasted even better than they looked.
Since it was outside of New Avalon proper, the already lax alcohol restrictions were even more lax. So there were large crowds on Phil's expansive outdoor decks drinking beer before noon. They were all dressed in the latest in biker fashion, an endless echo chamber of leather, skulls, flames, beards, boobs, and the color black. They were loud and boisterous. Anyone who didn't realize this was a biker hangout probably entered Phil's hesitantly or decided to find somewhere else to eat.
Due to this, Dane and Abby felt a little out of place walking up to Phil's. Though in his mid thirties, Dane still had a Boy Next Door quality and lacked a physically imposing presence. Abby was barely out of college, looked like she was barely out of high school, and the video camera slung across her would win her few favors.
"So what are we doing here?" said Abby, as they both came to a stop in front of the steps to the deck that surrounded the restaurant. "Are we just going to go in and ask around for where we might find the werewolf bikers?"
"I'm planning to leave out the part about the werewolves," said Dane. "Since we know the name of the club."
"So we are just walking in?"
Burning Monday: (Dane Monday 2) Page 9