by Flynn, Mac
A sly grin slipped onto Vince's lips. "We had no intention of running."
Vince slammed one of the pieces of metal into the side of the right-hand train that traveled from us to our enemies. The metal stuck fast and was propelled toward the devils. The lead one had time to widen his eyes before the metal sliced into his neck. It cut his head clean off along with the heads of half the others who were just as unprepared for the attack. The other half at the back ducked beneath the impromptu sword, but Vince anticipated their movements in the confined space and slammed the second piece of metal lower so it sat at their new neck height. The metal divorced the remaining devils from their heads, and body and head collapsed to the ground.
The dead flesh touched the electrified tracks and brilliant flashes of light jolted through their corpses. They hopped and jumped until the charred remains jumped off the tracks and onto the narrow gap between the trains. The end of the trains swept by us and all was quiet and calm.
"You can release me," Vince spoke up.
I turned to him and noticed my arms had a death-grip around his neck. "Heh, sorry," I replied as I sheepishly grinned and slid to the ground.
Vince stepped past me and over to the smoking remains. Head and body were barely recognizable as a humanoid thing, and the smell that wafted from them smelled like rotten eggs. I followed Vince and pinched my nose shut. "You know, we never did find out why they wanted to kill us," I mused.
Vince knelt down beside one of the corpses. "No, but they made a grave mistake by attacking us," Vince commented.
"You mean besides us sending them to their graves?" I returned.
"Yes. They showed us we are on the correct path."
"Path? Path to where?"
He brushed his hand over one of the tattoos. "To the leader of the Syndicate."
I sighed. "But we're not after the Syndicate," I pointed out.
Vince stood and brushed his hand on his coat. "Have you forgotten the insignia left in the dirt in the Morley basement?"
I furrowed my brow and recalled of what he spoke. "So you think what? That they might have hid Harriet's body?"
"Perhaps, but we can now be certain they have a hand in this affair," he mused.
I ran a hand through my hair and shook my head. "Just great. Devils and ghosts and zombie dogs. What next?"
"Mitch."
Chapter 8
A few minutes later we returned to the underground city where Vince led us to the Boo Bar. The place was hopping tonight, and not just because I spotted some frog people at the far back. Most of the tables were full, even those around Mitch's usual seat. He himself sat at his table with a drink in front of him and his notepad open in his hand. We stopped at his table and stood by his side. Even if Vince wanted to break with tradition and sit down, all the chairs around Mitch's table were taken.
Mitch glanced up from his notepad, smiled, and shut the front cardboard cover. He leaned against his chair and glanced between our faces. "Well, well, if it isn't my favorite two customers. What can I do for you today?"
"Not in costume?" I asked him.
He shrugged. "They're all at the cleaners and the new ones are on order. Besides, going incognito as myself is a pretty nice change, but let's get down to business. What were you wanting? Where the best meal can be found in the Underground? Info on where Ruthven takes his laundry?"
"We require information on the location of the book production facility," Vince told him.
Mitch's joking demeanor slid off his face and he sat up. "You're joking, right?" Vince just stared at him, and Mitch sighed. "All right, you're not joking, but even if I knew where it was, and I'm not saying if I do or don't, that wouldn't be something I'd sell to you no matter how much money you offered me."
"Why not?" I asked him.
"Because I'd be dead before I'd get to enjoy the loot. I heard one of the larger syndicates is managing that place, and I don't want to end up running out of life before I run out of costumes," he quipped.
"This wouldn't happen to be the Supernatural Syndicate, would it?" I wondered.
He raised an eyebrow. "What if it is?"
"Well, we just kicked some of their-"
"What if we provided you with protection?" Vince spoke up.
Mitch snorted and pulled out a small spray bottle from inside his coat. Inside was a thick red liquid. "I've got my own protection, at least for a couple of the little guys."
"A bottle of sludge is going to protect you?" I quipped.
He rolled his eyes. "This isn't sludge, it's lamb's blood. Guaranteed to cure a bad case of the devil." He leaned back, clasped the sides of his coat, and grinned at us. "And it helps that I can smell those devils a mile away."
Vince nodded at the bottle. "May I see that?" he requested.
Mitch raised an eyebrow, but handed over the spray bottle. "Sure, but even you'd better be careful with that-"
Vince turned to a neighboring table that held four human-looking men talking among themselves. He turned the spray bottle on their table and sprayed a healthy dose over the group. I expected protestations, but instead the men jumped up and screamed in agony. Their flesh, along with the spell that created the human features over their real bodies, melted away to reveal four devils. They clawed at the blood that covered their bare flesh, but that only spread the liquid to their hands.
The whole Boo Bar jumped from their seats and scurried away from the frantic four and the splatters of blood they flung. The ever-watchful eye glared at the disturbance, but the wild dance of death didn't last long. The blood consumed their flesh in less than ten seconds, and the devils dropped to the floor as piles of bones mixed with clothes.
Vince turned to Mitch who sat in his chair with his mouth agape. "You were saying?"
Mitch straightened and cleared his throat. "I was saying that I might need your protection, just until I figure out what these guys wanted."
"They wished our death," Vince explained.
"But how did they know we were going to be here and get here before us?" I pointed out.
"They must have overheard our conversation with Romero," Vince guessed.
A grin slipped onto Mitch's face. "If they were after you then I guess they've got nothing on me and I don't need your-" Vince slammed the spray bottle on the table in front of Mitch.
"Your blood killed men of the Syndicate. They will want revenge on you as well as us unless you help us find the factory and distract them with greater problems," Vince commented.
Mitch's mouth dropped open. "You're seriously blackmailing me?"
"Very seriously," Vince confirmed.
Mitch pursed his lips and snatched his spray bottle. He stuffed it into his coat and stood. "Fine, but I'm not going to forget-" Vince held out a roll of hundred dollar bills. Mitch automatically snatched the roll and stuffed it into his coat. "Already forgotten. Now let's step into my office." We moved our conversation to the quieter quarters behind the rear door of the Boo Bar. Mitch spun on his heels and faced us. "All right, what did you need to know?"
"The location of the book facility," Vince reminded him.
Mitch tilted his head back and rubbed his chin. "Well, I don't really know the location myself, but I know somebody who probably does."
"We may probably not keep you safe if you cannot find the location for us," Vince quipped.
Mitch held up his hands. "Fine, fine, I'm really sure my source knows where the facility is, but the bigger problem is my source doesn't owe me any favors, so you'll have to think of some way of getting the info out of them. Oh, and a fair warning: my source doesn't take kindly to blackmail."
"Lead us to your source and we will deal with the problem of leverage," Vince ordered him.
"We're going to need your ride. It's uptown," Mitch informed us.
We returned to our vehicle and Mitch gave us directions to one of the side streets off a fashionable district. Clubs decked both sides of the road with their neon signs that flashed advertisements for dancing and la
dies of the night. Crowds of people in bright clothes with dyed hair and sunglasses lined and walked the sidewalks searching for a few good memories to line their ordinary lives.
Mitch sat in the passenger seat while I was stuck between the men. Our guest rider pointed at an alley beside a four-story brick building with a neon sign advertising a snake. "There. Go into that alley and park in back," he directed Vince.
I looked at the sign as Vince turned us into the dark, narrow alley. "Immortal Reptile?" I read around.
"It refers to the legend that snakes shed their skins and stay immortal," Mitch explained.
The alley came out on a wide road in the center of the city block. A dozen parking spaces were on our left behind the Immortal Reptile, and Vince took the last empty spot. Mitch stepped out and we followed. He nodded at the rear of the building, and I noticed there was a wide metal-rung staircase that led downward to a thick metal basement door.
"The humans go through the front, but those in the know go to the basement," Mitch explained.
Mitch guided us down the stairs and he unlocked it with a thick, large black key. He opened the door and we got our first glimpse of the basement. The large, square, musty room held crates and empty boxes that were stacked to the ceiling. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling and rats scurried to their hiding places. To our right was the stairs that led to the ground floor.
"Those poor human saps don't know what they're missing," I quipped.
Mitch walked over to the far left side of the basement where sat a pile of heavy-looking wooden crates. He turned to us with a grin. "No, they don't." Mitch rapped on the side of the stack of crates and the pile slid away from him to reveal another staircase. Bright, colorful lights erupted from the lower room and illuminated the basement. Mitch gestured to the stairs. "After you."
Vince led the way down the stairs and I followed close behind him. We reached the bottom and beheld a room the size of three city blocks. The room was built like a coliseum with large, circular tiers that led down to a center square platform. The tiers were ten yards wide except for the top on which we stood, and they dropped down six feet for each level. The top tier was twenty yards wide, and the rear walls were covered in slot machines. The tiers below the top held lounge chairs and dining tables, and the areas closest to the center platform were filled with row upon row of theater seats. Stairs connected each platform and allowed the clientele to move freely among each other.
The atmosphere was Bohemian in how everyone mixed with everyone else. At the slots people in suits sat next to hobos, and among the lounge areas were middle-class monsters talking to rich and poor alike. The only thing more unusual than the mingling was the clientele themselves. Every possible creature from more nightmares than I could dream were gathered here in this strange amphitheater of fun. There were harpies, mummies, skeletons, slug creatures, and a myriad of other nightmares. They slithered, crawled, walked, and flew around the coliseum like it was a football game and every tier was a new tailgate party. Every creature was represented but vampires. Besides Vince, I didn't notice any other pale face with red eyes.
What I did notice was that most of the attention in the coliseum was focused on the lowest tier. Atop the center platform sat a giant metal cage, and inside the cage I could just make out two individuals duking it out. The crowd in the seats yelled and screamed as their favorite or adversary fell or won in the square ring. The opponents growled and snarled at one another, and even from this distance I saw they weren't humans but large mythical creatures. One was a sphinx, and the other was a minotaur, and between them was a very bloody ring floor.
I jerked my thumb at the coliseum. "Is this legal?"
"No," Vince replied.
"But it's a hell of a lot of fun," Mitch spoke up. He nodded at the wall opposite where we stood. I could barely see a door guarded by a gruff-looking stone golem thing that stood in the closed doorway. "We need to get in there," he told me.
Mitch guided us around the perimeter of the coliseum and over to the guarded door. He smiled at the seven-foot tall golem, but the creature stared back at us with depth-less black eyes and his puffy rock lips pressed together in a perpetual frown. He wore only pants, and the lack of clothes showed off his rock muscles.
"We want to see Lamia," Mitch told the guard.
The golem's voice was deep and gravelly. "Do you have an appointment?" the guard asked Mitch.
"No, but I'm an old friend. You just tell her Mitch is here to see her," Mitch instructed him.
The golem half-turned and pressed his fat finger against a large button below an intercom. "Lady Lamia?"
"What is it?" a smooth, silky female voice answered.
"A man named Mitch wishes to see you."
There was a derisive snort. "Tell him he can't have the pleasure."
"Tell her Vincent wishes to speak with her," Vince spoke up.
His voice was loud and clear, and the golem held down his voice button when Vince made the suggestion. I heard a small chuckle from the other end of the line. "Well, well, if it isn't trouble himself. Let them in, Rocky."
Rocky released the button and stepped away from the door. The door slid into the wall and revealed a staircase that led fifty feet up to a landing, and at that landing was another doorway. The left wall held torches that were the only source of light in the narrow stairwell.
"Into the lair of the monster. . ." I heard Mitch mutter. He turned to us with an uneasy smile and gestured to the stairs. "Ladies first."
Chapter 9
I looked to Vince and nodded at the stairs. "You heard what the man said. Get up there."
Vince's eyes narrowed and he proceeded up the stairs. I followed, and Mitch was behind me. We reached the landing and I noticed an insignia of a coiled snake on the entrance. Vince knocked on the door. "Come in," called the female voice.
Vince opened the door and we were presented with a view of a snazzy office that sat three floors above the street and overlooked the fashionable human district. Humans strode beneath the large windows that stood opposite us, and between the door and the windows was a thick oak desk. On the other side of the desk in a high-backed black chair sat a beautiful woman of twenty-five with long flowing red hair and a sly smile. She wore a slim business suit and small, thin bangles around her wrists. The woman gestured to a few seats in front of the desk.
"Please have a seat," she offered.
Vince led us to the chairs, and I noticed the office had a large amount of plants on the left and right walls that was enough to create a humid climate. The temperature was also set to eighty degrees, and I tried not to fidget under the heat as we took our seats.
The woman leaned over the desk and set her chin on her clasped hands. Her eyes were focused on Vince. "It's been a long time, Vincent. You should visit me more often," she cooed.
My eyes flickered to him and I couldn't help when my lips pursed together. "Do you not know any of the ladies in this town?" I whispered.
"We're very old friends, he and I," the woman spoke up.
"We came here to request your help," Vince told her.
The woman sighed and leaned back in her chair. "So I supposed, but what can I do for a detective?"
"Mitch tells us you may know where Ruthven's book manufacturing facility is located," he explained.
The woman raised an eyebrow and her eyes flickered to Mitch. Her tone added a slight hiss to her words. "Did he now? He should learn to keep his trap shut for once."
Mitch grinned and shrugged. "What can I say?"
"You can say nothing," she shot back.
"The deed is done, and we wish to know the location," Vince spoke up.
The woman folded her arms and shrugged. "But I don't wish to reveal that little secret. It's very valuable to me, and your asking for it just raised the price."
"To what?" he questioned her.
"Five million."
I choked on the number. "Five million? That's robbery. Who do you think you are?" I protested.
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The woman set her hands palms-down on the desk and stood. And stood. And stood. She stretched up and revealed that below the waist her body was that of a snake. The tip of her tail slid along the side of the desk and slapped itself at me. Her long, lithe form towered four feet above us and she glared at me. "I am Lamia, little girl, and I don't care to take lip from some half-dead human masquerading as a supernatural," she growled.
I blinked at her. "Half-dead?" I repeated.
"We didn't come here to trade barbs. We don't have that money on us and we are short on time. Is there something we can trade you for?" Vince suggested.
Lamia scoffed and slid back into her chair. "What could you possibly offer me?"
"A favor for a favor," Vince replied.
Lamia turned her lip up in a snarl. "That's no way to run a business."
"Then what about a bet?" Mitch spoke up.
Lamia raised an eyebrow. "You have my attention."
Mitch nodded at Vince and me. "These two against your best fighter in the ring. No weapons of any kind, just brutal hand-to-hand combat."
Lamia slipped a slender finger across her chin for a moment. She nodded at Vince's ring hand. "What about his ring?" she pointed out.
"We'll consider that a part of himself like those lovely bracelets on your wrists," Mitch suggested. I took another look at the bracelets and started back when one of them unwound to reveal themselves as small, brightly-colored snakes.
Lamia petted the snake with her finger and it curled up again as a bracelet. Her sly smile slithered back onto her lips. "It's a deal. My best fighter against these two. If you win I will tell you the location of the facility, but if I win I get to keep Vincent as my plaything."
I stood so fast that I knocked my chair over and startled her tail. "Oh hell no! No deal!" I protested.
Vince stood and grabbed my arm. "There is no other choice," he insisted.
I yanked my arm from his grasp and gestured to Lamia. "It isn't worth you being a slave to a snake!"
"A snake?" Lamia growled.
"We will not lose," Vince argued.