Courts and Cabals 2
Page 23
Something about the hulking man sparked a flare of camaraderie in the burning fire of my chest. “Shit,” I put two and two together, and that equaled troll.
“Hiya,” I waved at the big guy, who towered over my own six and a half foot glamour. “I don’t suppose we can talk about this.”
The whole situation was turning into a battle royale. Dani got to her feet behind me, and the two imps were stirring. Bad guys one and two had stopped about a dozen feet behind us, and looked like they were putting their needles back in their pockets. If they knew the needles were just going to bounce off me, then there was no point to limiting themselves in a fight. People gathered behind them to watch the show.
To make things even worse, convention security arrived from alleys on either side of the main boulevard. Judging by the size of a few of them, there were some shifters present; and I wouldn’t put it past a resort and casino that raked in money hand over foot to have a few mages on staff as well.
Then there was Layla, who looked pissed. Her carefully done bun had slipped open and her hair spilled down her back. With the cleavage and black miniskirt, she looked sexy with a triple X. Being pissed just added to the hotness for me, until she hissed and showed some fang.
The troll in front of me didn’t move, and no one said anything; afraid it would just set everyone off. Of course, that’s when bad guy number four showed up with a stun gun and took a shot.
Then it turned into a total clusterfuck.
I don’t know who the bad guy was trying to take down, but he hit one of the human security guards behind me. The poor bastard’s body locked up and he toppled like a felled tree. Of course, that made the shifter next to him pounce twenty feet into the air, like a jungle cat, and land on the bad guy with fist flying. The guy’s screams were cut short when the shifter gave him a one-two to the skull.
Baddies one and two whipped out weapons that looked like they were made of plastic and designed to get around standard security measures. They opened fire at anything that moved toward them. Sharp cracks echoed through the big hall, but it didn’t look like they were using lethal rounds. I could tell because blood didn’t fly everywhere, and I got an up close and personal view when a round hit me. My glamour held, but my arm went numb. All around me security guards were falling. They didn’t have weapons, but the remaining shifters were closing on the two baddies; walking through a hail of electrically-charged rounds to do it.
A couple guards tried to cut off the troll, and they paid for it. He didn’t kill them, but he definitely crushed bones and tossed them halfway across the convention floor. A brave shifter distracted him for a second, and that was our opportunity.
“Run! The casino!” Dani pointed down an alley to an open door filled with light and sound.
We got the hell out of there and let the troll, baddies, and security duke it out. If we could lose them in the chaos, that was fine with me. The troll’s very-inhuman roar ripped through the hall and told me we weren’t going to be so lucky. Still, we escaped down the alley and sprinted toward the casino door. The only problem was that everyone was heading for the exits. The whole hall was clearing out.
Gorgeous women with barely anything on mingled with the basement dwellers as they tried to squeeze through the door and into the perceived safety of the next room.
I felt a tingle on my skin as the hotel’s wards activated. The cops, mages, and whatever other surprises Vegas casinos kept up their sleeve to deal with shit like this were en route, and a lot more scrutiny was about to fall all over this place. As a wanted man, I wanted to be anywhere but here.
“For fuck’s sake,” I pushed at the back of the clusterfuck; forcing people forward. Everyone cried out in protest, but I didn’t care as I spread my arms and lowered my shoulder.
Dani added her strength to the equation, and together, we were able to conquer the bottleneck with naked force. People spilled out of the convention hall and into the casino. More security was waiting and started rounding up people to take them to safety, while keeping an eye out for the people that started the fight.
Dani and I were the last to emerge, and slid behind some large, decorative ferns. We didn’t know if the hotel’s people were out to get us as well, but we needed to get out of here. The troll’s roar had faded to eerie silence behind us; which didn’t feel like a good thing.
Dani’s eyes scanned for an opening. “Follow me,” she said after a second.
I got up to do just that, but was pulled up short. The ferns branches stretched out and wrapped around my feet. I would have toppled to the floor, like someone tied my shoelaces together, but the tree wrapped branches around my throat and squeezed. I didn’t know much about trees, but I did know I shouldn’t be able to feel a heartbeat in the branches. Even more important to my current predicament, I should have been able to tear those branches up with my enhanced strength. Instead, they bent with the force of my yanks, far past what was possible for a normal plant. Even worse, it seemed to be growing at an exponential rate, and those new branches grabbed at me. I tore one branch free and two more took its place.
“What the fuck is going on?” I gagged as a leafy extension of the demon plant tried to crush my Adam’s apple. “Fuck this shit!” I drew on the power inside me.
I didn’t know many glamours, but Lark wasn’t going to send me out into the world without at least one offensive object down pat. With will and power I manifested a familiar short sword. It looked exactly like the one Dani had given me back at St. Vincent’s; minus the cold iron and silverbane. I could have used the real thing right about now, but as far as I knew, I couldn’t create those interdimensional pockets like Lilith could.
Still, something sharp was something sharp, and I pushed a lot of power into the blade. It glowed like a floodlight by the time I was done and took my first swing. Where the branches were able to warp to counter my strength, they fell to my sword. I swept it in great arcs, cutting down huge swaths of fern. I hadn’t even noticed the plant now blocked the entire doorway. All around me, branches died, and the parts I cut shriveled and turned to ash. If I didn’t already know something fishy was up, that confirmed it.
Of course, the plant didn’t make it easy. It tried to grab my arms, hands, and wrench the blade from my grasp. It attacked with an intelligence I hadn’t expected, and I almost lost the blade the first time it feinted to draw me off guard and snatched my wrist. If Dani hadn’t dived into the madness, and chewed through it with her fucking teeth, we would have been screwed.
“Stay close!” I yelled as I hacked a way through the mass of writhing branches like a man possessed.
I was covered in sweat by the time we finally broke free, and my chest heaved from the exertion. I’d put a good chunk of power into creating the blade, but it was worth every bit.
Security had pushed people back away from the out-of-control plants, so there was an open space we had to cross. People looked at us wide-eyed and fearful, but that was a pretty human reaction to a guy wielding a fucking glowing sword.
“Hello . . . lovely day we’re having . . . nice dress . . .” I threw compliments to the people gaping at me, and took my eye off the ball. Something hard hit me in the side and tossed me headfirst into a nearby slot machine.
“Ow,” my head slammed through the section where the things spun around to tell you if you were a winner. Again, my glamour held, and more importantly, I held onto my sword. I pulled myself out of the guts of the machine, and turned to face my attacker.
“Wait, I know you.” It was the girl with the nice ass who’d been looking for room 212.
She was facing off with Dani as the ferns subsided behind her. “Some type of plant Fae,” I thought. There was nothing else I could think of that would make trees go apeshit and attack me.
“Let us go, and there won’t be any bloodshed,” Dani snarled as she balled her fists. She might have been relatively helpless in the plant prison the Fae tried to trap us in, but out in the open, she was deadly.
He had to bend down to fit through the door, and the sight of him sent humans screaming and running for the hills. His clothing was pockmarked with scorches, but whatever security had tried to take him down with, it hadn’t worked. He looked over the scene, ignored Dani like she wasn’t a threat, and focused on me.
“Great,” I grimaced as I set my feet and raised the blade.
“What the hell do you want?” I asked, although I was pretty sure of the answer.
“You,” the Fae replied, and they attacked.
A tree shot toward Dani with a surprising amount of speed, but the dwarf leapt back. She pulled a knife from her shoe and chucked it underhanded at the Fae. That caught her by surprise. She screamed as the short blade embedded itself in the Fae’s tit. A part of me thought the bitch was going to disintegrate just like Chloe had. Instead, she ripped the blade from her chest and tossed it to the ground.
I forgot there was no way you could press a cold iron blade, of any size, to a glamour without it unraveling. Dani and I might not be hurt by the Fae’s ancient weakness, but the power I wielded was susceptible to it.
As much as I wanted to help Dani put one of Captain Planet’s planeteers in her place, I had bigger problems. The troll charged me, and I didn’t have anywhere to run. Behind me was a wall of slot machines. In front of me was the troll. To the right was one of the ferns purposefully blocking my path, and to the left were innocent people running for their lives.
“Fuck me,” I groaned, and stepped up to meet the troll.
The thing was big, but not a total idiot. He wasn’t going to go up against my sword without a weapon. From one step to the next, the troll glamoured a big, hulking broadsword.
“Am I having Deja vu or what,” the sword looked almost identical to Ser Fredrick’s. I had a second to wonder if they all shopped at Trolls-R-Us before our blades met for the first time.
I thanked the gods I put as much power as I did into creating the sword. I held my ground against the shockwave that spread out from the blow. The slot machines behind me practically exploded, and fleeing people were tossed like ragdolls. I pushed up, throwing the troll’s blade away for me, and took a swipe at his legs. He jumped back, barely avoiding my blade as it sang through the air. He countered like he was swinging a baseball bat at me. I brought my own blade up to counter, but this time was different.
During the first attack, the troll had taken my measure. His second strike hit the center of my blade and split it in half. Thankfully, the extra force twirled me around, or he would have bisected me.
“More like beheaded me,” I thought as I spun into a fern, which then tried to kill me.
The glamour blade was already disintegrating in my hand, but I held it long enough to cut my way free. The plant was slower than before, which told me Dani was giving the other Fae a fight. As my glamour sword died, the power returned to my core in a rush. It made me a little light headed, and I wobbled on my feet.
The troll laughed. “I’m going to tear out your heart and shit on the graves of your loved ones,” he licked his lips, and showed teeth that were in need of a good brushing.
“Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin,” it was the wrong fairy tale, but fuck it. “Fight me like a man . . . troll,” I corrected, and held up my fists.
I didn’t expect it to work, but trolls weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. He dropped the sword, which dissolved into sparks, and came after me with curled fists the size of a spare tire. He might have disarmed himself, but the troll out-massed me, had a superior reach, and if the short swordfight said anything, he was definitely stronger. I’d only traded getting poked full of holes for getting beaten to a pulp.
Like Xamira taught me, I fought dirty. As he came in swinging, I ripped one of the slot machines out of the ground and hit him across the face with it. It flung him sideways, and partially through the wall, but didn’t slow him. He ripped drywall and wallpaper apart like it was nothing and came back at me. I moved around his first punch and hit him in the ribs. He grunted but followed up with a haymaker that nearly took my head off. I circled and put some distance between us.
The reach disadvantage was killing me. I had to be right up in his grill to hit him. That put me at risk of being grabbed, and my bones ground for the big fucker to make his bread with. I had to think of something quick. We danced, I thought, and it cost me. A jab caught me in the chin, and a cross smacked into the side of my face. I saw stars and went down.
I felt my glamour shatter under the force. The fire in my center winked out as I lost the connection with my Fae gifts. Thankfully, it was after the troll tried to punch my lights out, so I didn’t die right there on the spot.
“I’m still here,” I groaned as I fell to my knees, and my vision whirled like the world’s worst amusement park ride.
For the first time during the fight, my sight blared a warning without me being in the zone; and it saved my life. I threw myself to the side a half-second before the troll’s fist slammed into the ground. It shattered whatever was underneath the carpet and made the floor roll like there was an earthquake.
“Cam!” Dani yelled. I caught a glimpse of her. Her glamour was torn to shreds. She was bleeding, and limping; but the other Fae was on her ass. “We need to go!”
“Yeah, no shit sherlock,” I made a face at her, but she was quickly blocked by the troll’s mass.
The big fucker stomped toward me. I tried to get to my feet but tripped on the remnants of one of the slot machines. Maybe even the one I used to smash over the troll’s head. Either way, I went down and hit my dome on the ground. In my current state, it nearly knocked me out. The troll’s laugh boomed through the haze in my mind, as he grabbed me by the shirt and lifted me off the ground.
“I only need your head,” I could smell rotten fish on his breath and almost puked. His free hand palmed my head like a basketball.
“Well, this had been fun,” my vision still swam, so I wasn’t going to get the best view of him ripping my head from my shoulders. I could live with that.
The gods had different plans.
Overwhelming heat smacked into my face, and the troll jumped like someone had lit a fire under his ass. His shock caused him to drop me, and I saw that’s what was literally happening. The troll’s ass was on fucking fire, along with his entire backside. The troll turned and threw up his arms to protect himself, and I got a good look at an expensively dressed man with fire shooting out of his hands like a human flamethrower. The flames were steadily changing colors.
It started off a dull red, but quickly progressed to more of a clear, cherry color. At that point, the troll seemed to be fairing okay. His skin glistened with sweat, and the kinetic force behind the flame seemed to be doing more damaged than the heat. He was able to take several steps toward the Ignis mage, and managed a threatening growl. The Ignis mage took a step back, but then the flame shifted to an orange that grew deeper over several seconds. Now, the troll’s skin was beginning to blister, and I saw pain on his face.
“Serves you right, buddy,” I raised a middle finger to him, but he wasn’t paying attention to me anymore.
He was taking measured steps toward the other Fae, who was sitting up and looking around with a stunned look on her face. I didn’t see Dani anywhere. By the time the troll reached the other Fae, the fire had started to go white. The troll’s flesh was starting to bubble and blacken, and it let out a furious roar. With a final burst of movement, he turned his back to the flame, scooped up the female Fae protectively, and stepped.
Fire flashed past where the troll used to be, and set the far wall ablaze. It was a brilliant pyrokinetic show, but I had other things to worry about; mainly, the shit ton of police that were going to swarm the area. I needed to get out of here, and I needed to not look like me.
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nbsp; I worked on the fly, something I’d never done before with glamour; but panic is a hell of a teacher. I held the image in my mind’s eye and started to pull power to fill out the mold my will laid around me. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. Heels appeared as my feet shrank. Long, toned legs replaced my jeans to end in a short, black skirt. A short-sleeve, white button down covered up a flat stomach, and crawled over a pair of nice, perky tits. Above that came an elegant neck, a face of sharp, beautiful features, and a mess of hair. I quickly amended the look as I crawled away from the fire and into a nearby bathroom. Water leaked from where the plumbing had been wrecked in the fight, but that just added to the look I was going for. Rips and tears appeared in the outfit as well as a cut to the head. Blood dripped down my new face and into the small amount of water coating the floor.
Last but not least, I let my canines grow out a bit, and assumed the position of damsel in distress. To anyone who didn’t really know her, I could pass for Layla, the VIP vampire tour guide.
“Fire department,” someone yelled before they came in the bathroom. After all, it was the women’s room.
I gave a groan in reply, and the firefighters hustled in. They fussed over me professionally and called for a stretcher. The EMTs put a C collar on my neck and led me out, past the police, and Ignis mage that was giving a statement. I could see men in the black suits of federal law enforcement appearing on scene as word got out, and knew I had to get out of here quick before someone noticed me.
Thankfully, the diligent first responders did all the work for me. I was loaded into the back of an ambulance and taken straight to the hospital before the police could lock down the perimeter. Once we got to University Medical Center, I slipped away from the EMTs, dropped the Layla glamour, and resumed the tall, lanky guy with the big nose. From there, I caught a bus around town. I spent an hour on public transit looking for a tail. If someone was following me, I couldn’t tell. I took a cab to Caesars and found my way into the secret garage entrance. Security must have registered me crossing the magical boundary because Lilith and Fern were waiting for me at the door.