“What’s your real name, darlin’?”
“Stuart. But nobody’s called me that since Mom and Dad died.”
“Battle trophy.”
“Yeah.”
Stacy coughed. “Hello? Another person at this table? Anybody notice?”
“I’ll tell you all about it, darling, I promise. In more detail than I’m sure you’ll want. But I don’t think we got the time right now. Ari? Ideas? What now?”
“I don’t know.” I was exhausted suddenly. I understood now, and understanding carries its own forgiveness. He’d ridden with the Dark Rulers, walked a line few men ever walk, a dangerous line between two worlds that of necessity blurred together, leaving no clear-cut path of righteousness, only varying shadows of gray darkening into deepest black. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to share it, any of it, and I hadn’t had any right to expect him to. It’d cost way too much. His parents’ lives.
“Well, well, look who’s back,” Spike said, raising his glass and toasting toward an empty chair. Ah. Our friendly ghost. “Be nice if you had a little more concrete information this time.” He leaned forward. “Really? You don’t say?”
My phone shrilled loudly. The ringtone announced an incoming call from a number not programmed in.
I grabbed it halfway through the first ring and hit speaker. We all leaned in close.
“Hello?”
“Luigi’s Pizza. This is the caterer. How big a party are we talking about tonight?”
Chapter Twelve
“I’m not sure,” I said.
Spike looked at the empty chair and took over. “At least fifteen or twenty if we get there early enough. After that, all bets are off, they’ve got more guests invited.”
Long pause. When the voice spoke again, it didn’t sound happy.
“Dr. Forrester. I assume it is Dr. Forrester now? Sure hope so. We expended a lot of effort to keep you in medical school after that little night ride of yours. Almost as much as we expended keeping you and Garrett off the Most Wanted list.”
“Yeah, that really made it up to us, that little slip of yours that got our parents killed.”
“Touché. Any idea where this little party’s going to be?”
Spike looked back at the empty chair. “One of the empty warehouses back off the old Florida Railroad tracks. The ones the Florida East Coast line don’t use anymore.”
“Lots of empty warehouses back off the old tracks.”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t have big street numbers plastered on the front. I know which one it is.”
“And you intend to show us, not tell us.”
“Give the man a cigar.”
“You don’t trust us?”
“You think?”
“Garrett had any luck locating that missing cook of ours?”
“Depends on your definition of locating. He’s not gonna be catering any more parties.”
“Well. We figured as much.”
“Which bothers you not a bit, does it, you son-of-a-bitch?”
“Language, Dr. Forrester, language. It goes with the territory. Where’s Garrett?”
“In the middle of the party. And if he doesn’t make it home tonight, you’ll be a lot less fond of me than you are now.”
“I need to organize the staff. When are the other guests arriving? And what’s the entertainment?”
“Probably got an hour. Don’t know how much longer than that. Believe an auction’s planned. Not a charity event.”
“We’ll call in an hour.”
* * *
Stacy reached over and took my hand. “Ari—”
“I know. They’ve got him. Our friendly ghost told you.”
“But he told us where they are, too. So let’s move it.”
“But—you’ve got your cycle. I guess the Intimidator’s still there, too, but I can’t freakin’ ride it alone!”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Let’s go.” Spike stood up and started looking up and down the rows of bikes.
“What the hell are you lookin’ for? I can’t ride a cycle, even a small one!”
“Not looking for a small cycle.” He grabbed Stacy’s hand with his right, my hand with his left, and started moving down the sidewalk so fast we had to trot to keep up.
Down one block, onto another, Spike’s eyes moving non-stop over the crowd.
“There! Desert Troopers out of Vegas!” He charged over to a group of bikers in the same club colors. “Guys! I’m—”
“Wait a minute. I know you. Never forget a face. Dr. Forrester? Yeah! Dr. Forrester! My grandson’s baby doctor! You’re a biker? I’d known that, I’d have been after you to come ride with us! What’s your club?” The man inspected Spike’s jacket, looking for club affiliation.
“Yeah, life-long biker, but my brother and I tend to ride alone. And thing is, my brother’s gotten himself in a little jam down here and I need to get to him. But I’ve got my sister-in-law and my lady here with me and neither of them can ride alone. Any chance one of you have a bike with a sidecar?” He pulled the Dark Angel’s keys out of his pocket. “Lot to ask, but here’s my keys. Black Harley Road King with Nevada plates, M99, parked in front of Cyanide. I’ll take full responsibility if I could possibly borrow—”
“Hell, man. Know you wouldn’t recognize me, but I sure as hell recognize you. Saw you in the waiting room at the Children’s Hospital. When you came out and told my son and daughter-in-law my grandson was gonna be fine. Meningitis. We damn near lost him. You saved his life. Where’s Moondog? Moondog!”
“Sure thing.” One of the other bikers stepped forward and handed over a set of keys. He pointed down the row of bikes. “Right down there, the dark red Harley. With the sidecar.”
The Brotherhood of Bikers, Lord bless ‘em. And they weren’t done yet. The Desert Trooper Spike had first approached held us back a moment.
“Doc!” He whipped a card out of his wallet. “Take this! My cell number’s on it. Lots of us down here. And we’re not the only Vegas club here, either. You need us, you call.”
“Thanks, man. We really appreciate this.”
“Yeah, well, I really appreciate my grandson still being with us to have his last birthday party, too. No joke, doc. You need us, you call.”
A grin split Spike’s mountain man beard. “You know, I might just do that.”
* * *
We charged down the street to the dark red Harley with the sidecar. Now how in the hell did one fold oneself into a sidecar?
Spike straddled the bike. “Stacy, get on back. Ari, just pretend it’s a canoe.”
“Okay, but you should know I can’t swim.”
“Just consider me your life preserver, sweetheart.”
Spike maneuvered into the Main Street traffic and inched his way down the street. He turned into the first alley and started working his way back toward the old, unused tracks of the railroad system, cutting across city streets when the alleys ran into them. I was totally confused in a matter of minutes. Not Spike. Less and less traffic moved on each succeeding street we crossed, until finally, Spike turned back onto main road and let our borrowed Harley loose.
We ran down into the back streets of the industrial district, and further back into streets lined with dilapidated warehouses. Probably only street people knew these warehouses now. The street people and the One Percenters.
Spike pulled over into a weed-filled lot between two of the ramshackle remnants and ran up close to a wall before cutting the engine.
“There.” He pointed down to a rusted warehouse standing alone, its companion buildings having fallen victim to years of disuse and neglect. It looked rickety on the surface, but on closer inspection, it seemed—sturdier—somehow than the rest of the remaining structures. “They’ve fortified it a little bit. Put up some pinning on the inside.”
“How do you know?” I asked. “That it’s the one or that they’ve put up any pinning?”
Stacy pointed to the shadows. “Him. Our ghost. We all
got our own little sack of magic rocks to tote around. He’s been floating in front of us the whole time. And him. Your little sack of magic rocks to tote around.” She pointed over to a clump of weeds near the front of the lot. Micah stood up and stretched. Then he looked over at us, arched his back, and swished his tail, obviously asking what took us so long.
“Oh,” I said. “Them. Of course.”
My phone shrilled. Shit! I grabbed it and hit the button to switch it back to vibrate as I answered. We were pretty far from the warehouse but there wasn’t a lot of city noise down here, either.
“Luigi’s Pizza. Put Dr. Forrester on the phone.”
I handed the phone to Spike. Luigi had no manners, but this wasn’t my world. It wasn’t really Spike’s either, but he sure had a better acquaintance with it than I did.
“Yeah?” Spike didn’t put the phone on speaker for the same reason I’d hit the vibrate button, I was pretty sure. I couldn’t distinguish the words, only the curt tone. But Spike didn’t look happy. “You’re shitting me, right?” I mean, he really didn’t look happy. “Tell you what, Luigi. You take your bureaucratic red tape and you shove it right up your ass.” He clicked the phone off and handed it back to me.
“What?”
“They’re having administrative difficulties getting approval to move on this. It’ll be several hours before they’ll be in position to move in.”
“Say what?”
“They’re fucking bureaucrats. The same kind got Mom and Dad killed. Now, it’s one of two things. They called to double check the GPS fix on your phone. In which case, they don’t want to deal with us, talk with us, argue with us, or try to pull Chad out first. They’re gonna come barreling in with all guns blazing and to hell with him if he’s in the line of fire. Or they really are tied up in red tape with one hand not knowing what the hell the other is doing and won’t move until Mother May I says yes they can. Which will be God knows when. And Chad aside—they’re starting an auction at ten p.m. tonight. Young, scared girls. Up on the block. To middlemen who’re gonna take ‘em God knows where and do God knows what with ‘em. And that’s probably the plan. To wait till the auction’s in full swing so they can take down the buyers. Which puts those little girls right in the middle of it but hey, who cares about that?”
I wanted to throw up.
“So what are we goin’ to do? Did our ghost tell y’all how many Dark Rulers are even in there?”
“Yep. Too many for us.”
“So what are we—”
Spike pulled the Desert Trooper’s card out of his pocket.
“We’re calling in the Calvary.”
Chapter Thirteen
Spike punched in the number.
“Jack? Spike Forrester. I got a situation.”
Stacy and I crowded close to the phone. Jack kept his volume up high. We didn’t have any trouble overhearing this conversation
“I got bikers. What’s your situation?”
“If I tell you, there’s gonna be people want to kill you.”
“Hot damn! The best kind of situation. Lay it on me, man.”
“Tell you up-front. My brother’s gotten on the wrong side of an OMG. The Dark Rulers. And it goes way back. One of the reasons we both ride solo. You still in?”
“Like super glue.”
“’K. Years back, he put the hierarchy of the Rulers away. For awhile.
“You mean your brother—” One thing Jack wasn’t was dense. You could hear understanding in his voice.
“Yeah. I do. But they’re out. And they recognized him. They have him. And they’ve branched out their old OMG operations, too. To include merchandise of the human kind. Merchandise they intend to sell tonight. You following me?”
“Damn sure am.”
“And seems like the people ought to be helping are too tied up in red tape to move fast enough to do any good.”
Jack snorted. “Figures. Where you at, where are they, and what’s the plan?”
Spike ran it down. Except for the plan part. Seeing as how we didn’t really have one.
“I’m calling in all the Vegas clubs down here just as soon as we hang up. But we don’t want to roar in a big group. Gonna send ‘em in couple at a time, I’m thinking. And I’m making a side trip to an industrial supply house.”
“Good man. What’s your side trip?”
“Didn’t you read my card?”
No, actually, except for the first name and the number, none of us had. We did now. Jack Hudlin, Ph.D. Chemical Engineer. Hudlin Technology, Inc.
“Some damn,” said Spike.
“You betcha’ ass, son. Gonna be some smoke bombing in the old warehouse tonight. Among other things.”
* * *
We waited. Shadows formed and re-shifted.
“Ari, you know I need you to go in, right? Ghostman’s pretty good but I need you to see the layout. From Chad’s eyes.”
“I know.”
I didn’t want to. Because I’d already dipped a toe in the water. Water dark and cold as the River Styx. Water of memory. Of hate and hurt. And betrayal. His of them. Them of him.
I took a deep breath, rubbed the big diamond of my engagement ring, that magic talisman that deepened our connection, and dived in.
* * *
His jaws hurt. Both sides. Which meant mine did. And it was hard to focus through eyes swollen almost shut. Hard to breathe through the bloody nose, too. They’d worked him over pretty good. Shoulders hurt, but that was mostly from bouncing around on the floor of the crash van they’d tossed him into when they’d jumped him in the alley back of Cyanide.
He was on the floor, his back against a wall. Not tied to anything, we weren’t that lucky. Chained. And on second thought, maybe that was lucky. The wall he was bolted to wasn’t all that sturdy anymore. Enough pressure and the bolts should pop right out. I counted fifteen Dark Rulers, including the Prez. And a bushy wild man from Borneo. The original Spike. Until our Spike had claimed his handle, anyway. I wondered if they still called him Spike. Then he moved and I saw it. The hook that replaced the hand. So. They’d had to amputate. I’d bet Pine Whisper Plantation they called him “Hook” now. And there was the woman from the bar. I was right. One and the same as the woman from the flashback. Snowman’s reward for a job well done.
She came over and squatted in front of him in a modified version of that favorite Bike Week pastime, death by boobs.
“Used to love these, Snowman, remember?” She ground against him. “Betcha never found anything like ‘em since!” She ground forward hard again, pushing his head back against the wall before she relented and backed off.
He gasped for breath by the time his nose and mouth was clear.
“No, Iris, I never found anything like ‘em since. Silicone that hard’s not all that common, thank God.”
I winced. The man never would learn when to shut up. The bikers laughed and cat-called.
“Hell, Snowman, you always did call ‘em like you saw ‘em! Damn sho’ right about that, now!”
The woman—Iris?—slapped him hard and blood trickled from the corner of his lip.
“Shut your fuckin’ mouth! Don’t you talk to me that way!”
“Back off, bitch! Can’t take the heat, don’t play with the fire. You knew he was a smokin’ gun. Always was.”
“You defending that—that Judas!”
“Oh, hell no, bitch! Just want him alive and conscious for tonight’s finale after the auction. The motorcycle pull.” The Prez grinned. If I’d actually been standing there, I’d have fainted. The image in his head was that clear. The image of Chad, each limb chained to four revving motorcycles. Motorcycles tearing off in opposite directions.
Baby girl! Pull it together! Chad’s voice echoed through my brain.“Ain’t gonna happen. You’re here now. The Coven’s here. And everything’s gonna be just fine.
Glad you think so. Have you seen the girls?
No, but they’re in the back, behind this wall. Drugged to the max. T
hey won’t be targets. And they’re really cocky. Got a lot of cops on the payroll. No lookouts, no guards. Not now, anyway, there will be in about an hour when the buyers start coming in.
Good. Don’t know yet exactly what’s happenin’. Be ready for anything. Probably gonna get confusin’.
I’m always ready for anything. Thought I told you to stay at the hotel with Stacy.
Oh, bite my ass!
Love to, darlin’. Anytime you say. Let’s just get out of this mess first, how bout it?
Just be ready. I disengaged and went back to the waiting members of our little family Coven.
* * *
“Well?”
“Well, we get him out or he’s tonight’s finale at the motorcycle pull.”
“That I already know. Where’s Chad? Position wise? And the girls?”
I ran down the layout. “Didn’t our friendly ghost tell you already?”
“Yeah, but one thing I’ve already found out. The dead don’t always have the same perspective of distance we do.”
The first Calvary reinforcements pulled up, three riders wearing the Desert Trooper Colors. One of them rode a very familiar cycle.
“Hey, Doc! Damn, this roadster rides smooth! Might have to go visit the dealership when we get back to Vegas.”
“Moondog, my man, what you’ve done, what all of you are doing—hell, I’ll give you the roadster.”
“Mighty generous, Doc, but that wouldn’t be right. Brotherhood’s gotta stick together. Us against the world. We’re gonna have a good many riders pulling in here. What the Jackster thought was, the three of us get here first, you show us where. And we ride out to meet the incoming and keep ‘em further back till we hear the signal, keep the noise down. That work for you?”
“What’s the signal?”
“Well, knowing the Jackster—I’m thinking it’s gonna be loud. He oughta be right behind us.”
Sure enough, Jack Hudlin, Ph.D., Chemical Engineer, rode in quietly. Or as quietly as his Harley ever ran.
War-N-Wit, Inc. - The Coven (War-N-Wit, Inc. - Book 3) Page 8