by Hondo Jinx
The building’s few windows were high up and covered by heavy iron grates. Otherwise, it was sheer cliff of blank concrete facing another large parking lot in poor repair. Only this lot held dozens of cars. Nice cars. Porsches, Ferraris, Lamborghinis. All parked here in the middle of what looked like a zombie movie set.
They approached a concrete loading dock. The roll-down door was shut, but a smaller door stood slightly ajar. From this narrow opening spilled flashing light, thumping bass, and a sweet-smelling mist that twinkled in the yellow light of the overhead lamps.
“Suddenly, I feel curiously aroused,” Sage said, sniffing the sweet mist.
Brawley nodded, feeling his pulse pick up. And his heart rate wasn’t the only thing rising. His jeans were growing tighter, thanks to a sudden erection.
“Oh shit,” Nina said. “I’ve heard about these Carnal clubs. They pump aphrodisiac gas into the air. Which makes no damn sense, because the Carnals are all horny all the time. Though I’ve heard they drag fuggles in there and use them, so maybe that’s it. Oh, this is such a bad idea.”
“Tell that to my bullet wound, darlin,” Brawley said, stepping toward the door.
But at that second, the door swung open, releasing a cloud of sweet mist and blast of dance music. A pretty boy with a tight black t-shirt painted over his bodybuilder’s physique stepped outside and gave them a cocky smile. “Welcome to Heaven and Hell. Club shuts in half an hour, so get inside, get off, and get out, boys and girls.”
“All right,” Brawley said, heading for the door.
But then the pretty boy narrowed his eyes and scowled. “Hold on. You’re not… members. Heaven and Hell only admits the hottest people in Miami.”
Brawley gritted his teeth. He hadn’t anticipated this complication.
“You ladies can come in, but your boyfriend can take a hike,” the doorman said. He looked Sage and Nina up and down, not even glancing at Brawley, who, if he didn’t need to meet a carnal chick, might wallop this cocky fuckwit into the afterlife with a blast of telekinetic force.
“He’s not our boyfriend,” Nina said, eyes flashing with irritation, “he’s our husband. And we’re with him, period.”
The pretty boy shrugged. “All of you can take a hike, then.” And he slipped back inside Heaven and Hell.
“Bite me!” Nina shouted, and turned to leave, but Brawley stopped her.
“Hold on,” he said.
“Unfortunately,” Sage said, “they will not allow us entry into this nightclub.”
“I didn’t come here to drink,” Brawley said. “I came to meet a Carnal chick. And if they’re shutting down, I can do that right here.”
The door banged open again, emitting another blast of electronic music and strawberry-scented mist.
A laughing girl with hair the color of midnight backed into view, holding the door and talking to someone in the club. She stood there, jabbering away, her ass twitching back and forth to the thumping music, looking like she’d stepped off the pages of a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition… including the designer shades riding atop her head and the tiny red bikini she was wearing.
“Why not just do him?” Bikini Girl said. “I think he’s hot.”
“No way,” another female voice said, just out of sight. “He’s a total pig. Can you imagine what he’s going to do with those fuggle girls?”
Bikini Girl smiled. “I wouldn’t mind doing a few things to the shorter one myself.”
“You’re such a slut.”
Bikini Girl laughed. “And you’re being a prude. I don’t understand why—”
“Not screwing him,” the unseen girl said. “All he wants is power. He’s less interested in getting into my pants and more concerned with getting into Mommy’s good graces.”
“You’re not wearing any pants,” Bikini Girl laughed. “Besides, I’m not telling you to marry the guy. I don’t know how you can resist him. I mean, especially with the love mist so thick tonight.”
“Yeah, my pussy is throbbing,” the other girl said, and stepped into view. “But hey, that’s what vibrators are for.”
She was a petite blonde with a perfect body dressed in white heels, white stockings, lacy white panties, and a matching bra that looked two sizes too small for her gorgeous breasts, which shimmered with perspiration and twinkled with constellations of glitter. A pair of feathery angel’s wings were strapped to her back, and a little white halo sat crookedly atop her yellow hair.
This girl was so fine, she could strut sitting down.
Brawley’s erection threatened to tear free of his jeans.
The Carnal girls started down the short ramp, coming in Brawley’s direction.
“Hell, if you’re in the mood for toys,” Bikini Girl said, “come home with me.” Her bikini top was striped and splotched with wetness. And as she drew closer, Brawley saw pearly splashes on her breasts and face, and he smelled the bleachy bedroom odor that told him exactly what Bikini Girl had been up to in there.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” the busty blond angel said. “I’m supposed to go out on Mommy’s yacht in the morning. She wants me to meet the CEO of Sony or Samsung or something.” Then she saw Brawley and laughed, blushing bright red. “Oh hi. I didn’t see you there.”
Brawley, wishing he had a damned hat to tip, was reduced to a smile and a nod. “Howdy.”
The blond angel looked him up and down, smiling. “I’ve never seen you here before.”
Bikini girl tugged her arm, giving Brawley a contemptuous once-over. “That’s because he’s not one of us, Bella.” Her eyes flicked toward Nina and Sage and she grinned nastily. “None of them are.”
Brawley had half a mind to tell Cum Breath to fuck off, but he had more important fish to fry. “I would’ve asked you to dance, but the bouncer wouldn’t let us in.”
Bella grinned prettily and bit her lip. “That’s a pity. What’s your name?”
“JB,” he lied, giving her the name of the bull rider he’d idolized and emulated in his youth.
“Well, JB, let me give you something,” Bella said with a bright smile. She reached into her lacy bra, withdrew a shiny black rectangle the size of a credit card, and handed it to him.
He glanced down and saw three golden letters etched into the black card.
VIP.
“Come back tomorrow night,” Bella said, “as my guests.”
Brawley nodded. “What time?”
“Ten,” she said, “and don’t be late. I’ll be waiting for that dance.” She gave her wings a little shake, and the rest of her shook along with them. Deliciously. “Oh, and don’t forget to wear a costume.”
The door banged loudly open.
“Woo!” a deep voice bellowed, and a huge guy dressed in a toga and sandals strutted out of the club with a staggering girl beneath each muscular arm. He was six and a half feet tall with the build of a Greek god and a face to match. High atop his lantern-jawed face, a crown of laurel graced his golden locks.
The girls with him giggled, clearly fuggles and clearly fucked up. They weren’t Carnal hot, but the taller of the pair was a good-looking brunette in her late teens, and the shorter girl was borderline stunning, despite her glazed-over eyes.
Bikini Girl elbowed Bella, eyeing the big blond guy hungrily.
He gave the giggling fuggles a shake and boomed, “You girls ready to fuck and suck?”
“You know it,” one of them slurred. The other just laughed, sounding sleepy.
The big guy looked at Bella and her hot but snotty friend, and a gleaming smile lit his face. “You ladies want to join us?”
Bikini Girl laughed, and her ass started twitching back and forth again. “Sounds—”
“No,” Bella cut her off. “We’re not going with you and your pets.”
The big guy shrugged. “Your loss, babe.” Then his eyes swept over Brawley, didn’t seem to even register his existence, and bounced back and forth between Nina and Sage. His smile grew even wider. “Well hello. How about you girls
? You want to have fun with a real man?”
Brawley’s hand went to his belt and closed around the XDS. The big bastard was ten, maybe twelve yards away and had his arms around those girls. Plenty of time to draw and fire. “Keep on walking, blondie. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Oh, is that so?” the guy said, drawing out his voice in a twangy mockery of Brawley’s West Texas drawl. “You fixing to teach me a lesson, bone ass?”
The guy kept coming down the ramp, smiling like the world’s happiest asshole. But Brawley had learned at an early age to trust eyes over smiles, and this guy’s eyes burned with rage. He probably wasn’t used to people calling him on his bullshit. In about two seconds, he was going to reach the end of the ramp, and then he’d be within ten yards. Any closer than that would be too close.
Fuck it, Brawley thought, and pulled the .45 and held it ready at his hip. He wasn’t taking chances with this plus-sized asshole.
The guy slowed, his smile dimming to a mean grin. “You think that’s going to stop me, bone ass? I’ll rip your fucking head off and shit down your scrawny neck.”
“You can try,” Brawley said, raising the XDS.
Then Sage was standing in her shooter’s stance, aiming the Glock 43, and Nina had her arm outstretched, a fuck-ton of telekinetic force no doubt at the ready.
“If you persist, I will fire a 230-grain 9mm +P bullet into your brain, which will render you incapable of regeneration.”
“And even if they both miss, hotshot,” Nina said, “I’m Unbound. I’ll take your head off with an invisible snowplow.”
The guy stared for a second, looking amused and murderous.
Then the door to the club banged open, and a pack of muscular dudes in stupid costumes strutted out, shouting over each other. Registering the scene, the newcomers went silent and serious.
The asshole’s smile returned full force. “Well, well, well. Looks like shit just got interesting.”
To hell with this, Brawley thought, and was just about to pull the trigger, put a hollow-point between the big asshole’s eyes and start dropping the others, when Bella shouted, “Enough! No more games. Colton, take your fuck toys and get out of here, or I’ll tell Mommy.”
The big guy turned bright red but nodded at Bella. “Fine.” He turned his angry gaze on Brawley before popping both fuggles onto his shoulders and swaggering off, booming laughter that Brawley didn’t believe for a second.
Things weren’t done between them.
Not even if the big bastard really was just fucking around.
Because Brawley recognized the name Colton.
Colton Finn was the name of the psychotic bastard who’d planned on raping Tammy, then killing her and her kids.
Nope, not done, Brawley thought, watching the broad-shouldered monster toss the fuggle teens into a red sports car. Me and him still have business.
“Don’t forget,” Bella called, smiling back at Brawley as she sauntered away arm in arm with her bitchy friend. “Ten o’clock.”
“Count on it,” Brawley said, but he just stood there with his XDS at the ready until the other Carnals cleared out. Then he and the girls headed back to the RV.
“Bella seems like an appropriate mate,” Sage said. “She is physically attractive and—”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Nina said. “She would smash our happy little family like a wrecking ball.”
Brawley unlocked the RV and held the door for his women. Before climbing aboard, however, he paused on the sidewalk, suddenly ill at ease.
The feeling had nothing to do with the near altercation with the Carnals. Dread simply brushed over his calm like a passing breeze might wrinkle the surface of a pond.
There was something wrong with the RV. Something that didn’t belong.
Was somebody waiting for them inside?
No.
Not inside. But someone was coming.
They were coming because of the thing he had sensed, the thing that didn’t belong.
Following a sudden compulsion, he circled the RV, brushing his hand along the frame as his eyes scanned the gloom. Frustrated by the semidarkness, he released a trickle of Seeker juice, and his gut told him to search the driver’s side, two or three feet above the rearmost tire.
“Son of a bitch,” he said as his fingers brushed across the small protrusion that had no business being there, and his mind filled with the memory of world-class side boob.
14
“Cover me,” Remi said, stepping from the pickup into the seemingly empty lot.
Seemingly.
The rapid, steady beeping of the receiving unit told a different story.
“The lot is empty,” Callie said. Then her amber eyes narrowed, and she wagged the enormous Desert Eagle back and forth. “If this is some kind of trick…”
Remi scowled at the paranoid Beastie. “You think I’m a Gearhead? How could I make the receiver beep like this? Besides, what would I do, run off? I’m hobbled, so I have no juice and feel like I’m going to die. And oh yeah—it’s 4:30 in the morning, and I’m topless. In a shitty neighborhood. With shredded pants and no money or ID. I can’t defend myself and I can’t go to a hospital or the cops, because my Suburban is sitting in the middle of the biggest crime scene the Middle Keys have ever seen.”
The cat girl didn’t lower the pistol.
Remi growled with frustration. She was hurting like she’d never hurt before. She’d managed to sleep for half of the three-hour drive, so in theory, she had replenished her juice, but thanks to this fucking collar, she couldn’t tap a single point of it. “Look, Psycho Kitty, the receiving unit doesn’t lie. The RV is here, in this lot. Brawley and the blonde are Seekers. They’ve cloaked the thing. Now I’m going to go find out where they’re hiding, so cover me. Or shoot me in the fucking back if you want. I’m hurting so bad right now, I don’t really care.”
Without waiting for a response from Callie, she turned and walked into the parking lot, scanning her surroundings and following the beeping unit like a woman walking a whining dog.
The surrounding buildings stared like concrete faces bearded in graffiti. Only one tag glowed with psi script.
FUCK PARTY, the glowing scarlet graffiti announced from within a glowing arrow that pointed down the street toward Heaven and Hell, the infamous, after-hours meat market for Carnals.
The beeping grew faster, more insistent.
Where are you, Brawley?
She had to bag this asshole, take him back to Jamaal, and rescue her sister. After that, Remi was screwed, thanks to the clusterfuck back on the highway. The fuggle cops would never stop looking for her, and the Order would be pissed that she’d left the Gearhead-tweaked Suburban as evidence.
But at least she still had a chance to save Winnie from the Chop Shop. She clung to that notion now like a drowning woman clinging to the smoldering flotsam of her former life, which had been rammed by Brawley and torpedoed by Dutchman.
She limped on.
Where are you, handsome?
Then she was standing in the middle of the abandoned lot. The receiver’s beeping was a steady whine now, like the ICU heart monitor of a flatlined patient.
Here.
The RV had to be right here, even if she couldn’t see it.
She reached out, patting the empty air in front of her like she was pawing her way through a dark room.
Her boot crunched, snapping something on the ground. Looking down, she saw the little glass vial she’d crushed, the broken glass winking up at her from where it twinkled beside the iron grate of a storm drain.
That’s when she spotted the transponder jammed into the grate.
“Fuck,” she muttered. She turned off the receiver, pocketed the adhesive-backed sending unit, and dropped onto her ass. Then she just sat there, hurting.
She was so fucking tired.
A moment later, a gentle nudge roused her.
There stood Callie, aiming death in her face.
Remi rolled
her eyes and held up the receiver. “They found it.”
“What do we do now?” Callie said.
“I don’t know,” Remi said. “I’m hurting too bad to think straight.” And she let her head hang.
A few seconds later, something landed in her lap. She looked down and smiled.
A key.
“Twenty seconds,” Callie said. She backed up a few feet and was aiming directly at Remi’s head. “That’s it. Take it off for twenty seconds, heal yourself, and put it on again. Or else—”
“You’ll blow my brains out,” Remi said, scooping the key off her lap and inserting it into the collar. “Thank you.”
She twisted the key. The collar clicked and popped, going loose, and euphoria flooded Remi’s battered body. She gasped as warmth and buzzing energy filled her, wiping out the pain and erasing her fatigue. Within her, damage un-fucked itself, and then she was once again thrumming with more strength than an Olympic powerlifter, more speed than an Olympic sprinter, more—
“Time’s up,” Callie said in a deadly purr.
“Fine,” Remi said, refastening the hobble. All that delicious speed and strength whipped away, taking with it the euphoric glow.
But the pain was gone. She had healed.
Even without her Carnal strength, certain things were possible now that hadn’t been possible only thirty seconds earlier.
She was one step closer to freedom. And that meant one step closer to catching Brawley.
Time to take another step in that direction.
She stood.
“The key,” Callie said, holding out one furry hand.
Remi tossed it into the air.
The cat girl caught it without glancing away from her captive.
Cagey girl, Remi thought. But young. And not entirely merciless, even if she was a killer. That was a weakness Remi would look to exploit.
More than anything, she surmised, Callie was afraid. The Beastie had talked a lot during the ride. They would ride a few miles, Remi sleeping, and then Callie would wake her with a sporadic blast of anxious monologue, mostly recounting what Junior had done to her uncle and how scared she’d been and how she needed to warn Brawley since he saved her.