Vegas Rules

by Jan Stryvant

  Putting his pistol away, Sean reached into his suit jacket and pulled out the gladius he'd brought along for just this very reason and went over to the dead body, checking to be sure that there weren't any traps left.

  A minute later he had the head wrapped up in a bloody towel and was back at the stairs, looking at Henry, who was starting to cough on the smoke.

  "So, you removed the pellet your father had put in you?"

  "Course I did," Henry said. "I'm not stupid."

  "So why didn't you leave him?"

  "Because he was my father? Because as long as I did what he told me to, he left me to do as I please?

  "Now, can I get up? Or are you going to leave me here to burn to death?"

  "Why? What have you done to deserve to live?"

  Henry sighed, "Not a damn thing, honestly. But I never did anything to deserve to die horribly either. And with my father trapped in that bed, well, I got to make sure he didn't either for the last few years."

  Sean moved down the stairs a bit, to get his own head out of the smoke, and considered it.

  "So would the others say to let you live, or let you die?"

  "It's not like we can get them all up here to vote right now, is it?" Henry growled, and then coughed again. The smoke was starting to get thick, and it was quickly getting extremely hot up here.

  "If you can get everyone to agree that you get to live, you live. If not, you'll be dead in twenty-four hours," Sean said and putting his hand on Henry's head, he reached down for that part of 'him' that was in Henry, and was rather surprised to not only find it, but found that he could make it do what he just said.

  "What?" Henry said looking at him.

  "Get up, go. Just remember, you have twenty-four hours to get them to agree."

  Sean turned and started down the stairway rather quickly, as Henry scrambled down on his hands and knees, not getting up until he made it to the second landing, and then running out the back.

  "There you are!" Peg yelled, "Come-on, they're about the light up the back of this place!"

  Sean followed Peg as she ran out the back, there were pools of gasoline everywhere, and as they ran by Travis, he lit a flare and tossed it into one of the pools of gasoline that went up with a loud 'woof' as Travis joined them running for the exit from the compound. Sean shifted back into his human form, noticing that Peg had already done the same.

  "Harold's son is a lycan?" Peg asked, surprised.

  "Apparently. Then again, from the way Harold was acting, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that no human woman would have ever slept with him willingly."

  As the four of them came out of the back, several real firemen came up to them and escorted them over to an ambulance for some first aid and other care. They didn't need it really, but there were reporters watching from beyond a cordon now, so Sean knew that they had to make it look good.

  "Where are they?" Henry asked, looking around.

  "Who?" Travis said.

  "Everyone you freed, where are they?"

  "Oh, we sent them off to Ted's place. He's got it all set up to take care of them for now." Travis looked at Sean, and then back at Henry, "Why?" Travis growled.

  "Because I have to talk to them, one last time, that's why!"

  "It's the condition of his parole," Sean said, "If they all forgive him, he gets to live."

  "What if they don't?"

  "Then he dies. So if you could drop him by Ted's, with the lycans you just freed, I'd appreciate it."

  "Sure thing, Sean. What are you doing to do?"

  "Take this little package around to the other casino owners of course, and have a little chat," Sean said and hefted the head-sized bloody towel he was now carrying.

  Power Play

  Sean walked into the Hi-Wire with Roberta, Jolene, and Peg following him, the others were just outside with the group of locals who'd been assigned to this casino. He suspected that any problems he might have here would be magical, so he brought all of his magical backup.

  In his left hand he now had what looked like a hat-box, he didn't think a bloody bundle would be wise at this moment. He was still dressed in the same nice suit he'd worn to Dolitt's. However he definitely smelled of smoke, and he may have gotten a little blood on the jacket.

  "Sir, you...."

  "Can it," Sean told the man at the front door as he pushed by him. "Call the manager, I want to speak to him now, I just came from Dolitt's, which I'm sure you can see from here is burning to the ground."

  "Unn," the man looked at Sean a little uncertain, but the three women with him were all dressed as expensively as he was, and if he had come from the other casino, that would explain the mess. He quickly came to the decision to call his manager.

  Sean stopped just inside the door and looked around. He reached down inside and leaned on his lion and even the First for a moment. What he'd done at Dolitt's hadn't been too difficult, but he hadn't been the one leading the charge, so to speak. But now he was the one out front and center. He was the one everything would count on.

  And he had to do it all in cold blood.

  "How can I help you?" A man asked, walking up purposefully to Sean with a pair of bodyguards or hotel security behind him.

  "Are you the manager?" Sean asked, bluntly.

  "I'm the night manager, how can I help you?"

  Sean looked around him, the area around him was clear, the gamblers and other customers were further inside.

  "I got the cameras," Peg said.

  Sean nodded and turned back to the night manager. "I'm here for your lycans. All of them. You will turn them over to me, and then allow my people to search the grounds to be sure we have all of them."

  "I think you'd best leave," the night manager said while the two men behind them put their hands inside of their jackets.

  "If you don't accede to my demands, immediately," Sean growled and shifted into his hybrid form. "I will burn this casino to the ground, just like I did with Dolitt's, and your head will be joining his in my box!" Sean opened the box then, giving the three of them a good view of what was inside it.

  "I have a hundred armed men outside and a hell of a lot more magic than you do. You've got ten seconds and don't think I have any problems with killing the three of you!"

  "Boss," one of the men behind him said, Sean noticed that each of them had an earpiece in their right ear, and were apparently listening to somebody, "he's not bluffing. Jack says they're out there, and the police are refusing to respond."

  "Shit," the night manager swore, "Destefano is going to have my ass for this!"

  Sean recognized the name of course; Destefano was the owner of the Hi-Wire.

  "Why don't you go call Destefano and have him come down here? I'll deal with him," Sean growled. "Now, are you going to comply? Or die? Time is short."

  "Tell everyone to do as he says," the night manager said, looking up from the box into Sean's eyes. "So you're that lion everyone's been talking about?"

  "Yes, and I'm nowhere near as nice as the rumors make me out to be," Sean growled. "Now let's go to Destefano's office while my people clear the building."

  "Like that?"

  "Now," Sean growled.

  The two bodyguards carefully removed their hands from their jackets and started giving orders over their radios to roust all of the lycans in the building and take them to the back employee's entrance. Sean signaled to Jolene who called in his own troops, and a moment later a group of men came into the building to start searching it as Sean followed the manager to the office as the man pulled out his cellphone and called Destefano, obviously waking him up and telling him that there was a problem at the hotel and he needed to come right now.

  To say that he got a lot of looks was an understatement, but this being Vegas, everyone just thought it was a costume, and the comments he could hear said as much.

  Once inside the office, the night manager dismissed the two other men. Sean took the seat behind Destefano's desk while the girls flanked out
to the sides, the man sitting in a chair where Sean had steered him.

  "How long will it take him to get here?"

  "This time of night? Fifteen, twenty minutes. It's not that far."

  Sean nodded and turned to Jolene. "Are our folks out there having any problems?"

  "Nothing that a couple of love taps weren't able to fix," she smiled.

  Twelve minutes later, an older man stormed into the room.

  "What the hell is going on here! And who the hell are you!" He yelled pointing at Sean. "And what the hell are you doing in my office!"

  The two men who had come in with Destefano dropped immediately as Roberta and Peg hit them with cramping wands from behind, but Destefano was too angry and too focused on Sean to notice.

  "It's simple," Sean said and reaching into the box that was sitting on the desk he grabbed a fistful of hair as he channeled his inner lion. "Lycans aren't slaves. If you want them to work here, you will hire them, and pay them. As of this moment, all of your slaves have been freed, and you will not be replacing them.

  "Or I will burn this place to the ground and put your head in the box!" And with that Sean lifted up Dolitt's head.

  Destefano's immediate reaction was to attack Sean with a paralyzation spell, followed by several ice bolts, and then a blast of raw force.

  Dropping the head Sean countered the ice bolts with a deflection, his framework draining off the paralyzation spell, and then standing up he met the blast of energy with his own. The shocked look on Destefano's face made it readily apparent that he hadn't expected Sean to be a magic user.

  Jolene and Roberta were also attacking him, but apparently, Destefano had some very potent magical defenses. Then again, considering the amount of money he made, Sean wasn't terribly surprised. Peg had a pistol out, which she was pointing at the night manager, who was more than happy just to stay seated and not move a muscle.

  Sean found the raw force attack to be an interesting move, sure he'd heard about it, Jolene had told him that in magical duels the higher level mages would often resort to raw mana because whoever had more of it, would quickly win. It was also something that lesser mages, and anyone without magical skills, could not defend themselves against.

  The problem for Destefano, however, was that Sean's defensive framework easily absorbed energy in its raw form, and Sean just let it flow right back at Destefano. Who didn't have the same abilities that Sean did. When Destefano suddenly reached to pull out a wand, Sean launched himself over the desk and tackled him, quickly wrestling away the man's arm, which he broke in the process.

  "You animal!" Destefano screamed as Sean got up and hoisted him to his feet. "I will never deal with animals! You're filth! We're your masters!"

  Sean nodded and grabbing Destefano by the back of shoulders with one hand he flung him down and pinned him onto the desk.

  "After you leave, I'll gather all of the other mages! We'll hunt you down and kill you! Your skin will decorate my floor!"

  "Then I guess it's into the box with you," Sean growled, and with his free hand he drew out the gladius that he was wearing under the jacket.

  "What? You can't...."

  Destefano's voice cut off as his head rolled off the desk and onto the floor, Sean's gladius cutting an inch into the surface of the desk. Wrenching the blade out of the table, Sean took a deep breath and steadied himself. He'd been about to let his lion do the cutting, but the remark about skinning his body and displaying it like a trophy had pushed Sean a little too far and he'd chopped the bastard's head off himself.

  "We are people," Sean growled at the shocked head on the floor, and then looked up at the white-faced night manager, "and if you don't let us go, the consequences will be on your own heads."

  Wiping off the blade on the corpse's jacket, Sean put it away, then grabbing Dolitt's head he stuffed it into the box, followed by Destefano's.

  "Make sure everyone understands just what will happen to all of you if I ever have to come back here," Sean said as he left the room with the girls following him.

  "That was pretty gruesome," Roberta sighed.

  "Yeah, I think I'm going to be having a hard time getting to sleep tonight," Jolene agreed.

  "I don't know, I think he got what he deserved," Peg said.

  "Tell everybody to join us at the next casino on the list," Sean grumbled and shifted back to his human form before they hit the main floor. "Hopefully an even larger presence will convince the next guy to see the light of reason."

  "What, don't want to chop off any more heads?" Peg teased.

  "I think we need to stop letting you hang around Cali so much," Sean grumbled as he thought of the shocked look on Destefano's face as he'd stuck him in the box. He'd heard stories in history class about how people who got their heads cut off didn't die immediately if it was a clean, sharp blade, like a guillotine. He just hadn't believed it.

  He'd definitely be having some nightmares of his own tonight.

  The next stop was a casino called 'The Forbidden City.' It was lightly themed, in the way Vegas themes anything, after the Chinese city of the same name. One of its primary draws was the troupe of 'Chinese Acrobats,' more than a few of which were actually from China, and it's 'Lion Dance' and 'Dragon Dance' that were performed by Chinese acrobats manipulating large elaborate puppets.

  "The owners just got here a couple of minutes ago," Roxy told him as they drove up to the entrance. "Apparently rumors are starting to spread."

  "Okay, we all go in together," Sean said as Daelyn stopped the van.

  Getting out Sean led the six of them over to the front doors, then stopping he looked at the gathering of lycans; the team was nearly double now with the addition of the people from the Hi-Wire.

  "All of you, follow me in. If they don't capitulate in five minutes, overwhelm them."

  Sean then turned and headed for the front door where a large burley guard tried to stop Sean. Handing the box to Roxy, Sean slapped the guy across the face, surprising and stunning him, then spun him around and put him in an arm lock.

  "The owners' office, take me there now, or I'll break both your arms. Then you'll be stuck paying someone else to wipe your ass every time you take a dump for the next two months."

  From the shocked expression, Sean's unconventional threat must have hit a nerve.

  "This way!" The guard gasped and led Sean and his wives into the building and then down a side hall to a rather nice suite of offices. Releasing the guard, Sean pushed him out of the way and reclaimed the box from Roxy as they stepped in through the door to the office suite.

  "Who do you think you are? You can't just barge into our offices like this!" An older woman said as they came into the room.

  Sean looked around; there were five of them, all obviously magic users, two men and three women. Apparently, they'd just gotten here and were talking to another man, who was probably the manager if Sean had to guess.

  "Plain and simple, we're here for your lycans. They're free now, and you're going to let them go, and you'll never enslave any of them again."

  "Or what?" The younger of the two men asked, challenging Sean.

  "Or," Sean shifted and dumped the two heads out onto the table, "I burn this place down and your head goes into the box!"

  "Ha! Do you really think that you can take the five of...."

  There was the sound of a gun going off as Roxy shot him in the throat. The man's eyes went wide, and he fell to the floor, dead.

  "He goes into the box," Sean growled. "What about the rest of you?"

  All of the women's eyes went wide as they stared at him in shock.

  "You, you killed my brother!" the other man said and Sean was sure he was going to say more when one of the women kicked him.

  "Take them! Take them all and go!" She yelled, turning to look at the dead body.

  "Thank you," Sean said and pulling out his gladius he pointed it at the manager, "Inform the staff to cooperate with my people."

  "Y... yes!" the manager sai
d and ran out of the room as Sean picked up the dead man and laying him across the desk in the center of the room, he feigned a calmness that he wasn't really feeling as he chopped off the dead man's head with a single blow. The other owners were now cowering against the wall, looking the other way. Sean noticed that besides Roxy, Daelyn and Peg both had pistols, while Cali had something that looked like a small submachine gun.

  Sean's only thought was to wonder just where in the hell she'd been hiding it in that skintight outfit of hers?

  Roxy noticed that Sean's tail was twitching rather nervously, whether it was from the smell of blood in the room or the grisly task of picking up the three heads and putting them in the box, she wasn't sure. But she could tell it was getting to him. Sean did well in combat and one-time confrontations, that was because he could get in the moment and do whatever he had to do.

  Afterward, he was always a bit subdued as he processed what he'd just done and learned to live with it. He'd come a long way from the young man she'd had to push to help her kill those four men on that first night back in the schoolyard. He'd learned to let his lion deal with the things he couldn't, and he had that spirit living in his head, which he now called 'the First,' helping him out.

  But she could see this was starting to get to him. They were going from place to place to engage in cold calculated butchery, with enough time between each stop for the adrenaline to run out and realities to set in.

  Roxy listened to the radio calls as the 'Red Team' the group assigned to the 'Forbidden City' swept through the building. They'd already picked up the lycans working here, who had been escorted out the back door onto the loading docks by the manager. They were just making sure they had everyone before they left.

  "Red team leader to Gold team. We're done! Let's go!"

  "Understood Red team, Gold team is leaving now, cover our backs."

  Roxy turned to Sean, "They're done, let's go."

  Sean nodded and shifted back to human form, "Understand," he said to the four remaining owners, "I only care about my people, the lycans. Leave us alone, we'll leave you alone. But if I have to come back here," Sean held up the box that was starting to leak blood, "you will all go in the box!"