Beano growled and licked at his cut paw.
Khaldon called Lord Stovall to arrange for the abstergers to come get the delivery guy. He swiped off his phone and set it on the table. There was glass everywhere. He didn’t want to wake up Cheyenne, but it wasn’t safe for Beano and Stormy to keep walking around.
In the kitchen, Khaldon found a broom and dustpan and began to sweep the tile floor. He noticed a small etched figurine. It was their dragon heart he had given her the night they partnered in the game.
Boy, I sure am glad the guy didn’t hit this.
Khaldon looked over at Cheyenne. She took his breath away. A smile danced across his face as he continued to get the mess cleaned up.
After wrapping the body into what looked to be an expensive area rug, Khaldon stashed it in her spare bedroom closet. He looked around to see what else he could do to clean up and decided to work on Beano.
He carried Beano into the utility room and ran warm water in the pet bath. Carefully removing any embedded pieces of glass, he cleaned Beano’s paws and applied doggie Neosporin to them. “Okay now, don’t be licking this stuff off your feet.” He gave him a good scratching all the way down his back and checked his legs for cuts as well. “Ya know, Beano, since we’re here …” Khaldon pulled out the shower handle and rinsed him down while Beano happily wiggled around. Khaldon dried off his new friend and rewarded him with a biscuit. Khaldon picked him up and placed him gently on the floor.
Beano trotted off and Khaldon followed him into Cheyenne’s office. Beano curled up in his doggie bed as Stormy crawled in beside him.
On her desk was an out basket with lots of letters addressed to Roxas, but never sent. This put Khaldon into a precarious situation. He wasn’t snooping, but they were very visible and they were addressed to him. “What would you do, Beano?” Beano looked up at him and wagged his nub of a tail.
“What do you mean, what would Beano do? Who the hell are you? Why is there another vampire in this house?” Harris stood in a defensive posture at the threshold of Cheyenne’s office.
Khaldon sniffed at the air. His fangs almost fell out of his mouth, but he gained enough composure to not attack him. “Don’t get yer pants into a pandemonium. Perhaps I should inquire the same, wolf.” Khaldon gave him a wink.
“Rox? Are you Roxas?” Harris’ face lit up with recognition.
The posture standoff was over just as fast as it had begun. “Damn dude, she wasn’t kidding, you don’t look anything like Rox. This is gonna take some gettin’ use to.”
“This is the real me. So hopefully I can stay this way for awhile.”
Harris walked in and plopped into Cheyenne’s chair. “It’s good she’s asleep – she’s been a basket case, dude.”
“I can’t imagine the pressure she’s under. But I’ve put in a call to the local Lord and hopefully we’ll get some answers,” Khaldon said.
“What happened to Beano?” Harris asked.
“What happened was when I walked in here about thirty minutes ago, Cheyenne was snacking on a flower delivery guy. Come to find out, he’s a dhampir. He had silver cuffs on her and I guess was trying to capture her. But she and Beano totally whipped his ass! I would’ve loved to have seen it.”
Harris nodded. “No shit! So that must be his truck parked downstairs. Where’s the body?”
“I’ve got him rolled up in a carpet until the abstergers can get here. We need to identify this guy, and I don’t have any scanning equipment on me. She drained him like a bathtub. To top it all off – the guy was totally intoxicated. That’s why she’s passed out on the couch.”
“No shit?” Harris repeated.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, Briggs is on his way down. He’s driving in from New Orleans.”
“Seriously? That’s righteous. We got the Fed Ex package in the mail. Cheyenne is convinced it’s Dakota’s little toe.”
Harris’ eyes bulged. “That Mother Pus Bucket really did it. Dammit! You heard they have Kiernan now too, right?”
“BLOODY HELL! Are you serious?”
“Yeah, that was the clue he sent to her last night. They nabbed Kiernan and drained his live-in nurse. Cheyenne sent me a text after she got back from his house early this morning.”
“No shite!” Khaldon said.
“Yeah. And then on top of it, Ludovic told her she had to be online at eight a.m. for her next clue,” Harris continued. “She said the jerkwad had sent her a message that he wasn’t ready for her. Instead he sent her an Mp3 of Sheridan screaming. He’s jackin’ with her mind and her sleep I think. Making her real tired so she’ll start making mistakes, know what I mean?”
“It’s just one thing after another.” Khaldon sat on another office chair and let a long sigh.
Harris swiped the computer monitor to bring up the gaming portal, hoping there might be some tidbit Ludovic had left for them to discover. Anything to help them get one step closer to rescuing his adopted family. “What exactly did Cheyenne do to make him so angry? I mean, I know she’s got a snark to her, but she would fight to the death to protect her sisters.”
Beano nudged at Khaldon’s hand. Khaldon scratched behind his ears and opened the jar of treats from the desk. Khaldon handed Beano a biscuit and another one for Stormy.
Propped up on his elbows, Khaldon leaned on the desk. “Ludovic promised if she got her pop quiz correct, he would let her talk to one of them for a minute. She got the clue right, but he reneged and told her, ‘I didn’t say when you could talk to one of them.’”
Harris nodded and also let out a huge sigh. “Chey and I went through Dakota’s room last night. Cheyenne told me about the GC 89. We figured out it must be a clue to a geo-cache that Dakota had made up, but we couldn’t find any of her logs here. I drove to my house this morning to get the box that had her notebooks she had lent to me. But I can’t find any reference that goes that high.”
Harris grabbed a couple of dog biscuits for himself, as he broke one in half and crunched on it. “Hmmm. Really is new and improved bacon flavor.”
Khaldon looked at him.
“Blimey, dude?” Khaldon walked toward the living room shaking his head. “I can’t believe he really cut off Dakota’s toe. That psychotic pervert is so dead when I get hold of him.”
“Well, I think you’re gonna have to stand in line,” Harris said between bites.
“I should’ve been here for Cheyenne last night.”
“Yeah – you should have. By the way, just where the hell were you anyways?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Penthouse
Cheyenne O’Cuinn
“Hey there, sunshine. Welcome back.”Khaldon stroked my hair.
I’d been moved to my bedroom, and Beano was nested in behind me.
“How are you feeling?” Khaldon’s eyes looked deep into mine.
I wanted to sit there and gaze at him, but I had to pee something fierce. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and sat up. “Not bad, considering. I’ve got a killer headache. Maybe a shower will clear it up.” I had the mother of all hangovers. My mouth tasted like the bottom of my boot, and I needed a bathroom desperately.”
“Sounds like a good time.” A smile spread across Khaldon’s face. “You might want to get a move on. We’re supposed to meet Briggs at the Super Market in an hour.”
Roxas, Harris, and I walked out to the garage.
Harris gawked at my car. “What the hell, Chey! Is this the Limited Edition roadster you were hinting at? When did you get this?”
I pushed the keyfob, and the familiar alarm beeped when the doors unlocked.
“How do you have this car?” Harris kept on. “This vehicle hasn’t even been released. It’s still in the prototype stages, and YOU have one?” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
“It’s nice to have friends in the industry.” I nonchalantly shrugged. “Perks, my friend. Perks.” I shined my teeth at him.
“Well strike a light, m’lady, this is spiffing.
I just might have to get me one of these babies. Can I drive?” Khaldon asked.
“Drive? Oh no! That is one of the items in the contingency, no other drivers. No can do, sorry!” Both of them looked like I had just stolen their lollipops. Harris was my best bud for years now and Khaldon, well, I wasn’t sure what he was to me, but Roxas … he was … is my everything.
“Let’s just pick up Briggs and talk about this later,” I murmured.
Fortunately I-4 wasn’t jammed-packed with traffic, just the normal bumper-to-bumper at 75 mph. It took only about twenty minutes to get out to near the airport where this Super Market was located.
We parked next to an old, abandoned building.
“Guys. What is this place? Are you sure we’re meeting Briggs here?”
Harris got out of the car and ran his fingers along the paint job. “You see Chey, humans hardly even recognize this place. Inside it’s really a massive structure. To them it just looks like an old warehouse building out in the middle of nowhere.” Harris explained. “Basically the witches have been able to manage several glamours around the property. They can keep the unwanted away and it keeps the area safe for supers.”
“Supers? Witches?”
“Right, as in supernatural creatures. Ya know, preternaturals, things that go BOO in the night. We need a place to go shopping, just like humans do.” Harris elbowed me in the rib cage.
“So that place you were telling me about in the teleconference meeting was real?”
Khaldon placed his arm around my shoulder and squeezed me into his side. “Come now, m’lady, let me show you the most amazing attraction you will ever see in Orlando.”
“So we’re meeting Briggs here? Do you guys know what he looks like?” I asked.
Harris jumped over a cart railing practicing his parkour. “Rox, you said you knew him, right?”
“Yeah, we met. Damn it’s probably been twenty-five years now or longer. Believe me – you can’t miss Briggs, and he’ll know who we are as soon as he sees us.”
“What’s that supposed to mean Rox?” Harris asked.
And about that time, one of the largest, darkest, and sexiest black men I had ever seen in my life, stepped into view from behind a Land Rover. We each stopped and just stared at the mountain walking towards us.
“Chey Chey!” The man roared.
A big stupid smile crossed my face. I stood shocked to see the man behind the silken, chocolatey voice who I’d only known as Briggs. This was really good – meeting everyone and getting together, despite the circumstances.
“Briggs - Oh my stars – is that you?”
“In the flesh, dahlin’ – in the flesh!” Briggs grabbed me up and spun me around. I thought for sure he would crack me in half. He was bigger than Khaldon, and I wasn’t sure how that was possible. I hugged him back, and felt an immediate sense of relief that I had these three very capable guys to help me find my family.
Briggs set me down, and Khaldon stuck out his hand. “Damn, Briggs, it’s been a long time.”
“Rox, my man! Wasn’t your hair red? And who is this?” Briggs turned to Harris. “Wait, let me guess. Well I know the girls don’t have a brother, so you must be Harris. Right? Damn you about as white as they come.”
Harris laughed and stuck out his hand. “The one and only!”
“Hey, let’s go grab something to eat and catch Briggs up on everything. I want to go over what we’ve uncovered in the past few hours and just kinda start from the beginning.” They all nodded at me.
I stood in awe of the programming magnitude in front of me. These guys were on my team.
“But wait? Is this the right place for Briggs? Will he be safe in here?” I turned to Roxas.
“Uh … I wouldn’t worry about that, Chey,” Harris answered the questions instead.
“Wait? What? Are you trying to tell me that Briggs is a werewolf too?”
“What? Oh hellll no – I ain’t no daawg.” Briggs puffed up his chest in a mock sign of aggression. “No offense, Harris, my man.”
“None taken,” he responded. “Cheyenne, take a deep breath and tell me what you smell and feel.”
“I feel power, and a lot of it – and I smell smoke, sulphur, the ocean, some other things I can’t tell yet.”
Briggs picked me up by my armpits and brought me up to his eye level. He clicked his eyes vertically instead of the normal horizontal up and down. It sent extraterrestrial shivers through my chakras to think he was some kind of alien from the black lagoon.
“Baby doll, what you see here is one fine, black ass dragon. I am a Gargouille – a water dragon.”
“No shite! A dragon! Why is it that everyone on this team is a supernatural being, and none of us girls knew it?”
He put me down and laughed. “Most likely because we all work so remotely. Hell, Rox and I go way back to Compuserve days, and we just got to know one another over the years. I didn’t know about Harris until we met tonight. You can’t ever shake that smell from a werewolf.”
“Hey – I resemble that remark.” Harris laughed. “I need a good scrubbing and dip, but I don’t smell that bad, do I?”
We all just looked at him.
“C’mon – let’s eat – I’m starving.” Briggs slapped Harris on the back as we walked towards the old door that looked as if it would fall off its hinges if we touched it.
As Briggs and Harris took the lead, I assessed what definitely had Dakota’s interest. He was one fine, man.
Khaldon cleared his throat and wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me in tight. His bright eyes met mine. They dug daggers into me. “See something you like, m’Lady?”
I kissed him on the tip of his nose. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Super Market
How does one describe The Super Market? It was unlike anything I’d ever seen or heard of in my entire life. The place was architecturally magnificent. I felt as if I were walking into the Taj Mahal, it was so grand. The floors were marble and walls must’ve been lined in granite. I could hear running water in the far-off distance, like a waterfall of sorts. The energy of the place was that of a spa. The Super Market was divided into huge sections which catered to every need of the entire Supernatural community. We walked up to the reception desk where an alluring green woman greeted us with a cyan smile. I couldn’t help but look at her mouth when she talked. I had never seen blue teeth before.
A melodious voice sang out, “Welcome to the Super Market. My name is Z’anima.” She looked right at me but didn’t bother to address the guys. “You haven’t been here before, have you?”
I looked around at each of them. “What? Is it that obvious I’m a noob?”
“No, not at all, my dear.” Z’anima’s smile sent waves of ease crashing through me. I immediately felt better. She continued, “Would you like me to explain the services we have to offer?”
Not sure what this amazing creature was or how to respond, I simply nodded my head.
People walked in and passed us through the massive foyer as she slithered out from the counter to the marquee. That’s when the oddity of the situation began to make sense. Behind the counter displayed the most massive salt water aquarium I had ever seen in my life. It was as if whales could have fit inside it – the tank was so large. The tank teemed with every imaginable sea creature and a few I didn’t know existed.
Z’anima glided her way over to the marquee. She didn’t have any feet. A wet tentacle extended to the map. I swallowed hard, trying to keep myself composed, unable to figure out this Supernatural being.
She suctioned a cup to the map at where we were standing. “Here at The Super Market we offer all types of amenities and services which are specifically tailored to the unique needs of each and every one of us. Inside you will find our specialty grocery and clothing stores, but we also offer a fine selection of restaurants, blood bars, live feeding arenas, and human sustenance volunteers.”
Stomachs rumble
d all around, including my own.
Z’anima continued, “We also have an award-winning Wiccan apothecary, a well-stocked lending library – membership, of course, is always complimentary – a bookstore, and several multi-national and species specific spas.”
My eyes lit up. “Spas?”
“I highly recommend the spas. They have every health and beauty amenity available including sunscreen treatments, teeth whitening, debarnacalizers, scale shed and shines, breath freshening, tongue scrapings, wing massages – with or without the happy ending.”
I looked over at Briggs. He seemed very interested in the offerings.
Z’anima continued to list the myriad services I never knew could possibly exist. “Teeth and claw sharpening, horn scraping, soot flush, and we even have a wide assortment of deodorizing insecticide dips.”
Z’anima stared pointedly at Harris who was beginning to look a little self-conscious as he scratched behind his ear. She wiped a tentacled arm below her nose, but her smile erased all insinuations. “We also have professional services in the forms of walk-in health clinics, dentists, beauty parlors, custom tailors, insurance and travel agencies, along with tax accountants, and munitions specialists. It is easy to get lost in here and enjoy a mini-vacation from the confines of humanity. What are you interested in tonight?”
Brigg’s nodded. “We’re interested in finding a quiet place to grab a bite to eat, pick up some supplies, and then find a place to freshen up.”
Z’anima pulled out an electronic tablet. “Would you like for me to make a reservation at your spa for after you eat?”
Both Briggs and Harris nodded enthusiastically and booked their appointments.
Khaldon removed his arm from my shoulder and reached down to hold my hand. “Great – Cheyenne, that’ll give me time to show you where to get the best bloodwines and get a case for you to have at home. We can pick you up a full copy of The Vampyric Canons.”
“It’s not often we get such an eclectic mix of patrons in one group. Did you want to dine together, or find your food and then meet up a little later?” Z’anima asked.
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