by Jan Stryvant
Or Roberta, who had come in earlier, gambled for a few minutes, then used a different bathroom and was no longer in the building either.
"I think the show's about to start," Peg whispered to him. They were near the bathroom that Roberta had used, and just then Sean smelled it, smoke.
Nodding Sean started to walk back towards the stage, stopping at one of the card tables closest to it, he dropped a couple of thousand dollars worth of chips on the table, just as the fire alarm went off. Several women ran out of the bathroom then, coughing and yelling that there was a fire in the bathroom.
Looking up at Jolene, she nodded, so reaching into his pocket he pressed the button on the remote there and suddenly the bathroom exploded loudly, and everyone started screaming.
"Fire!" Sean yelled, "Don't let me burn to death!" and grabbing Peg he turned and ran in the opposite direction from everyone else, hopping up onto the large stage and running through the curtain covered entrance at the back.
They emerged in a cinderblock-walled hallway, that went straight back. Surprisingly, the layout actually resembled the building's plans that Carlos had been able to pull from the planning office. Magical or not, the casino was still required to be inspected by the fire inspector on a regular basis.
"How's it looking back there?" Sean asked Peg, who was peeking out the exit they'd come in through.
"Most of the people are out, but the fire seems to be dying down. Give me a moment."
Sean heard a whooshing noise then.
"What'd you do?"
"Set the stage on fire," Peg grinned. "That'll keep them busy for a while."
"And blocks off our retreat," Sean grumbled.
"Like you know how to retreat," Peg laughed.
Sean had to shake his head as they started down the hallway, she was right of course.
The first fifty feet of the hallway was just painted cinderblock with no doors or openings. Because this was the hallway the animal acts were brought down, it was required not to have any doors that opened out into the rest of the casino. This was in order to prevent any accidental escapes or confrontations.
While that wasn't an issue for any of the 'performers' at this casino, Dolitt couldn't very well tell the gaming commission or any of the other regulators about that.
At the end of the hallway was another set of doors, this would lead to the menagerie area, where the animals were all kept.
"Ready?" Sean asked, getting out his pistol he kicked off his shoes and shifted into his hybrid form.
"Aren't I always?" Peg grinned, pistol in hand and now in her fox hybrid form as well.
Jolene and Cali were madly gathering up her money from the table when the bathroom exploded, and everyone suddenly panicked. With the smoke and the noise, none of the staff noticed when Cali momentarily dropped to the floor and rolled a couple of tennis balls across it. By the time they'd all suddenly exploded with a loud 'bang' and began billowing thick black smoke, Cali was already standing back up and helping Jolene again.
Several members of the staff were herding the customers out the door at that point, not that they needed much prompting as they all wanted to get away from the smoke and the fire.
One of the floormen came over to the two of them at that point and started to herd them towards the door. Until Jolene brushed up against him and cast a terror spell on him, causing him to start screaming and running for the exit as well.
Just then the stage burst into flames and looking around the room, Jolene could see that except for the staff, the room was now mostly empty.
"Ready?" Jolene asked.
"Go for it," Cali whispered.
Raising her hands in the air, Jolene took all of the magical energy that Sean, Roxy, and the others had spent the evening filling her up with and proceeded to cast the largest mass spell she'd ever done in her life. Sean and she had spent an hour going over it, his take on magic, combined with the way that tantric magic worked as well as her mind skills helped her to create an effect she would never have dreamed of.
Jolene had to admit, that man of hers really knew how to push the limits, as well as her buttons. Smiling broadly, she watched as all but three of the people in the large main casino room crumpled to the floor, in a deep sleep. The three that were left standing were obviously magic users, and they all immediately turned to face her.
"This casino is now closed!" Jolene said loudly. "Leave now, and you'll be allowed to live!"
"So much for warnings," Cali snickered as all three started to cast something, but were interrupted as a dagger sprouted from the chest of each of them. Jolene hadn't even seen Cali's arm move, because she'd blinked.
Each of the three immediately collapsed, not because the daggers had killed them, but because Sean had enchanted them with a one-time immobilization spell that worked by blocking your brain's signals to your limbs by hashing your nervous system like a taser.
"Now, how about that cash room?" Cali grinned.
"Peg is going to be soooo pissed that she missed out on this part," Jolene laughed as the two of them headed back to the cashier's room. The people there had all left and locked the door behind them when the alarm went off. But as they really didn't care about the condition of the place, seeing as they were going to burn it to the ground anyways, Daelyn had made Jolene a nice little toy that she guaranteed would open the room back up for them.
After all, every cause needed money, right?
"Okay, that's our cue!" Travis said as the sounds of fire and police siren's split the night. Piling out of the back of the large moving van, all ten of his crew made for the back of the Dolitt's compound, where the animals were kept. All of his team was wearing Scott Packs, helmets and heavy turnout coats, with axes, pry bars, six 'water can' fire extinguishers that were actually full of napalm, and two Stihl powered cutoff wheels.
When they got to the back gate, Jessie and Kim took the saws, and while Jessie cut through the top hinge, Kim got the bottom one.
Ten seconds and a pry bar later, the gate was sprung, and they ran onto the grounds.
"Halt! What are you doing here!" A man said coming out of a guard booth and raising his hand.
"LVFD! This place is being evacuated, now go!" Travis said pointing to the exit as they all continued running into the compound, closing in on the guard who started to look worried.
"But you can't...."
"Of course we can," Jordan, one of the team said, and grabbing the guard's arm he started dragging him towards the exit, the guard sputtering and protesting all the way.
There was another gate at the guardhouse, and Jessie and Kim went through it just as fast as the previous one. Ripping it open they all piled inside, as Jordan rejoined them.
Travis looked around, there were cages everywhere and an assortment of tigers, leopards, wolves, plus a pair of bears, was looking at them.
"Girls, get the locks," Travis said and dropping his turnout coat he turned to the lycans in the cages that were watching him.
"Okay everybody, listen up. This is a jailbreak. I need you all to shift into your human forms. We will be distributing collars to all of you. Put them on immediately," Travis pointed to his collar, "Then take the tag that looks like this," he pulled his tag off, "And touch it to the collar." Travis replaced his tag.
"You'll feel a moment of pain and dizziness, which will be your silver pellet being destroyed."
Six of Travis's people were passing out collars to the cages, as suddenly there were a whole lot of naked people in each of them.
"Chet, how many robes did we bring?"
"Not enough," Chet said doing a second head count, "there are fifty-three lycans in here."
"Well shit," Travis swore, "Use your turnout coats I guess, or put the naked ones in the middle."
"Come on people! We need to get out of here before the news people show up with their cameras!"
"What about the others?" one of the women in the cage called out.
"What others?" Travis said, sweari
ng.
"There are four more women working inside as maids and personal servants to Mr. Dolitt and his son Henry."
"Chet, and Jordan, grab those water cans and head inside. Don't light anything up until you've made contact with Sean! Kim, take your saw and go with them, Jessie, keep working the locks!"
"You sure about this?" Chet asked in a lowered voice.
"Yeah, I'm sure. I don't know what Sean's plans are, but we need to make sure that those girls are found and have a clear exit to the back. Cut through the main security door and see if you can't link up with him or Peg."
Sean looked around, they were at an intersection, straight ahead another fifty or so feet was the heavy security door leading to the animal enclosure, an open half acre area full of cages. To his left was a door that opened on another hallway that supposedly led to the food prep area, as well as the loading docks for deliveries and the meat locker.
To his right, there was a stairway that went upstairs to the next level. Up there was where Harold Dolitt and his son Henry lived, in a set of large apartments. Opening up his offensive framework, Sean started up the staircase, ears up, gun out, listening for whatever he could hear over the sounds of the fire alarm, which was still going off downstairs.
The staircase went back and forth four times before they got to the final landing. Once there, Sean got down on his knees and slowly crept up the last few feet. This wasn't the only staircase leading up to the second level, but they'd decided it would be better for him to cut Dolitt off from being able to get to the lycans downstairs if he should try.
"What in the hell is going on down there!" Sean heard a voice yelling in one of the rooms down the hallway. "The security feeds show two women looting the cashier's room, and firemen carrying bodies out of the main room while others are spraying gasoline all over the place and setting it on fire!"
"Did you try calling the police?" another voice responded.
"What the hell good would that do! You know the sheriff is a lycan!"
"What about the FBI or something?"
"The phone's dead! Don't you think I tried that? And before you ask, my cell phone isn't working either!"
"Let me see that... Holy shit, you're right! They are setting the place on fire. I guess they just finally had enough of us," the second voice said with a laugh.
"And just what the hell is that supposed to mean!" The first voice screamed.
"I warned you, Dad! I told you to let them all go, get rid of them! They've got a new leader now, he cleaned out Reno, I guess now it's our turn in the barrel."
"I will not be told what to do by a bunch of sub-human animals!"
"Yeah, well, those sub-human animals are robbing us blind while burning the place down around us."
"I want you to go down there and put an end to it! Now!"
"All three of the floor mages are down, Dad. You don't think they'll be ready for me to show up too?"
"What kind of a coward are you! I gave you an order! Now go do it!"
"I'm not a coward, but even I can see that we've lost! Half the main floor is burning! And now that they've cleared the bodies, they're lighting the whole place up! If we don't get out of here now, we never will!"
"If you don't go now, I swear to you, I'll kill you just like I killed your mother!"
"Yeah, fine, I'm going. I love you too, Dad. Keep an eye on the cameras, I'm sure you'll enjoy watching me burn to death. I'll be sure to give mom your regards, unless of course, I go to hell like I deserve for doing your dirty work for all of these years!"
Sean heard the door slam and standing up he came face to face with Henry Dolitt as he came around the corner.
"Damn, looks like I won't burn to death after all!" Henry said and reached into his jacket.
Sean backhanded Henry with all of his might, the force of his blow crushing the side of the young man's face and snapping his neck, dropping him to the floor at Sean's feet.
"Stay!" Sean growled and started down the hallway towards the door that Henry had just come out from. Smoke was starting to fill the hallway, coming up two other stairways from the floor below.
"Umm, I don't think he's going anywhere anymore," Peg said, looking down at the body.
"You'd be surprised," Sean growled as Peg stepped over the body and followed him down the hallway. There were quite a few doorways up here, leading into the apartments that the two lived in, as well as a few extra ones, plus some meeting rooms, business offices, and Sean wasn't sure what else. But there was really only one reason why he was here, and that was behind the door that Henry had just come out of.
"Watch my back, make sure nobody sneaks up on us," Sean growled. Then opening the door, he stepped in.
And the scene before him was not what he had expected to see, not in a hundred years.
Harold Dolitt was lying in a hospital bed, he had an IV in one arm, and multiple connections to his other arm. It took Sean a moment to realize that the man was hooked up to a dialysis machine. There were four young women in the room, one was operating the dialysis, one was monitoring his vitals, a third was preparing some sort of meal, and the forth Sean guessed was just waiting on Harold.
Harold himself looked old, and from the state of things, Sean suspected he probably didn't have much more time left even if Sean or the fire didn't kill him.
"So, come to gloat, have we?" Harold said loudly from the bed.
"Actually, I just came up here to kill you," Sean shrugged. "I figure if I show your freshly severed head to the other casino owners, they won't put up any fight when I tell them to let my people go."
"Let my people go! Ha! Who do you think you are, Charlton Heston?"
"No, he was just an actor after all."
"Well if you kill me, everyone here's pellets will go off, and they'll all die."
"How melodramatic," Sean said looking around the room. It was a rather nice living room, even if the hospital bed and all of the medical equipment took up a lot of it. "Is this one of those, 'If I can't have it, no one can?' or more of a 'I'll take my ball and go home' kind of thing?"
"Ha! You don't scare me! Too bad you didn't come here sooner; I bet I could have gotten a fortune if I had a lion in one of my acts!"
Sean looked at the girls and nodded towards the doorway as he stepped to the side of the doorway. The four of them quietly set down whatever they were holding and filed out of the room.
"Doesn't matter how far they go, not that they can leave here!" Harold laughed. "I got triggers everywhere! But to answer your question, it's life insurance, plain and simple. If I die, they all die, so I better not die! Kept their furry asses in line for decades I tell ya'!"
"So, old man, tell me. Would you really kill your own son?" Sean asked looking around the room, the smell of smoke was getting stronger. There were a lot of magical items in the room, and more than a few of them were tied to the bed.
"He wouldn't be the first one! Why shouldn't he be the last?" Harold laughed again. "Of course I bet you took care of him already, didn't you?"
Sean considered that, a man paranoid and evil enough to kill his own kids probably would put some very nasty traps on the bed he was now trapped in.
"So, was your son on this 'dead man's switch' of yours as well?"
"Course he was, little bastard would have killed me the first chance he got, I'm sure!"
"Well, if you did a shit job of raising him, I'd guess so," Sean said and walking around the breakfast bar he looked in the small kitchen area where the one girl had been preparing something for Harold to eat. Whatever it was, it was pureed and didn't look terribly appetizing.
"I took care of the girls, Hon!" Peg called from outside the door.
"Fine, take them out the back and go. I'll be a few minutes yet," Sean called back.
"Umm, Sean, the end of the hallway is starting to burn!"
"I won't be long, don't worry."
"You better not be, or I'll be coming back up here!"
"Oh, she sounds pretty! Why d
on't you invite her in here too?"
"Right now, I'm trying to decide on whether I should cut your head off, or just let you burn to death," Sean said, turning on the water in the sink. He set the drain plug to block the water and watched as it started to fill up. "Which do you think would hurt more?"
"If I burn to death, you won't be able to threaten the other casino owners now, will you?"
"Well, I left your son's corpse out in the hallway; I could just cut off his head instead."
"Won't work, they know he was just another slave to me. They'll all think you just didn't have either the nerve, or the power!
"Come on, why don't you come over here and cut my head off? You're not afraid of an old man, are you?"
Sean put his left hand in the pool of water; the pipes in the casino were probably all plastic, so grabbing one of those wouldn't ground him. But the steady stream of water flowing into the sink, however, would. Not as good as a thick metal rod, but good enough he was sure.
"Actually, Sean said and pointed the gun at the old man, "I'm just not as stupid as you think I am," and moving his aim to the side, Sean shot the dialysis machine in the large filter pack, causing a spray of blood all over the room.
"You bastard!" Harold screamed and he pointed at Sean, the ring on his finger glowing as he cast a spell at Sean. Sean's defensive framework caught it, but rather than try and siphon power out of it, Sean let it all run to ground through the hand he had in the water, having to actively push it along as more and more power flowed out of the ring, which Sean could now see was tied to the bed, and through the bed to quite a stack of magical batteries.
"Why won't you die!" Harold yelled at Sean, as the dialysis machine continued to draw blood out of his body, but not pump any back in.
"Because I'm a god?" Sean said and smiling slowly he pointed the gun at Harold.
"I'll kill them all!" Harold screamed.
"Sorry, but only one of us gets to play the god card," Sean said and shot Harold in the chest. Surprisingly it took three shots before Harold's hand dropped and the magical attack stopped.