by Jan Stryvant
Sean smiled and shifted into his hybrid form.
"Wow, that's almost as big a surprise as you handing me all that money," Terri said a bit bewildered.
"I'm surprised you're taking it so well," Roxy said.
"I deal with a lot of very eccentric rich people, I've had to learn to adjust," Terri said, "Plus I've known Sean for years, so umm, I'm dealing."
"I can do full lion too," Sean said.
"No, I think that'll be fine," Terri laughed a little nervously.
Roxy went next, then Peg, the other girls followed after that, each showing Terri a little something to prove to her what they really were.
"My turn," Chad stood up. "Notice my limp is gone?"
"Actually," Terri nodded, "yes, and I've been wondering about it too."
"I got bit by a werewolf, and Max here was born as one."
"Wait, what? Max, you were born a werewolf?"
"Yup," Maxine nodded.
"Then that means, Claudia, your mother...."
"You know my mom?" Maxine looked surprised.
"Of course, I'm the one who sold her those two helicopters last year! No wonder she painted those wolves head on the front of them! And here I thought she was just a fan of the football team," Terri said blushing in embarrassment.
"Hey, I got to use those tickets you gave her," Maxine grinned, "she may not be a fan, but I am!"
Terri turned to Alex, "And what's your story?"
Alex grinned, "I'm just a mundane, but my boyfriend here is a werewolf."
"Boyfriend?" Terri blinked.
Alex nodded.
"You're gay?"
"Well, yeah," Alex said looking at Terri funny.
"Oh my god! And I've been trying to set you up with my girlfriends for the last two years! Oh, I'm so sorry, Alex! I had no idea! Honestly!"
Sean turned to Steve as Terri started to profusely apologize to Alex.
"I hand her a backpack full of money, tell her I have six wives, then show her I can turn into a lion, and she loses it over trying to set Alex up with her girlfriends?"
Steve shrugged, "That one was her fault, the rest is all your fault. Terri's a saleswoman to extremely rich and eccentric people like she said. Insulting someone is like her biggest fear."
When Terri had gotten her composure back and accepted that Alex wasn't upset with her, she shook hands with Demon and gave both him and Alex a hug and then turned to John.
"Nah, I'm a mundane too, but I've known about all of this stuff for years," John said waving his hand at everyone.
"Really?" Terri asked surprised.
"You spend enough summers on the reservation, you get to see all sorts of interesting stuff," John shrugged. "Plus I've been working for some of them for years now."
The timer in the kitchen went off then.
"Well, dinner's almost done, if anyone wants to help me, I could use some help with setting everything out."
Roxy and Daelyn got up and went and helped Terri bring the food out, and then they all sat down to eat around the table to eat.
Sean looked around the table at his four oldest friends and had to smile, it was almost like old times, the conversation drifting into gaming and then anime. Maxine, Roxy, Peg, and Daelyn of all people, were fairly familiar and up to date on a lot of the games and anime that they discussed at the table.
When they finally finished and sat down in the living room, Steve put a disc on and fired up the TV as they all continued to talk.
Seeing what was playing, Sean just had to sigh.
"Really, Steve? Tenchi Muyo?"
"Hey!" Steve laughed, "If the shoe fits!"
"Beat them to death with it," Sean sighed, but had to smile.
"Exactly!"
"So, what's new with your work?" Sean asked turning to John.
"Eh, not a lot really. I take it those two fires down in Vegas were your doing?"
Sean shifted in his seat, "What makes you say that?"
John grinned, "Ah, the look of the guilty! But there's a pretty blurry picture of a big guy wearing a suit in a lion costume that one of my filters picked up off the web last night."
Sean sighed and shook his head, "Damn."
"Eh, don't worry about it. It's a pretty bad shot. Whoever did it must have been drunk cause it's pretty blurry and the lighting is bad."
"Yeah, but what if someone sees it?"
John snorted, "Thousands of people already have. A couple of fursuit makers are already claiming it's one of theirs. I wouldn't worry about it much."
John took a drink of his beer, "Besides, who's going to believe it was anything more than a costume? It's not like you really exist you know."
"Gee thanks," Sean grumbled.
"Hey, anything for a friend!" John laughed.
"Still, are you sure it's alright?"
"Of course I'm sure. Magic users avoid most tech, same for a lot of the other mythic and supernatural folks. Those that don't, well they already know about lycans, so they're not gonna care. As for the mundanes? It's a lot easier to believe it was a costume than a real monster, it's Las Vegas, people are pulling stunts there all the time.
"I wouldn't waste any time worrying about it. The internet's already moved on, trust me, nothing will come of it."
Behind Closed Doors
"Okay, so what's so important that you needed to see me first thing this morning?"
"Well, Sir. It's that human trafficking issue that blew up in Vegas over the weekend. Justice called the FBI, and the FBI started going over what they got, and that's when it came to our attention."
"And?" Director Kensington prompted.
"Well, Sir, I don't think they were human."
Director Kensington sighed; it looked like it was going to be one of 'those' days.
"What do you think they were?"
"Well, based on what we know about the history of Las Vegas...."
"Cut to the chase, Carl," Director Kensington interrupted.
"I think they were lycans, Sir."
"Is that all?" Director Kensington shook his head, the way most mages and their councils treated lycans was criminal in his opinion, but no one cared about his opinion on the topic. Very few people in the government were aware of the existence of mages and lycans and the other magical beings out there.
And it was part of his job, as the Director of the Secret Service to help keep it that way. At least that aspect of his job was an easy one. The mages with their whole 'tradition of silence' whereas they did everything they could to remain secret and hidden helped him a lot with that. But that policy also meant that they couldn't go after the mages for many of the things that they did, which the common populace probably wouldn't approve of, and that the courts most certainly wouldn't.
"Well, Sir, by itself it wouldn't be. However, the other casino that burned down that night?"
"Yes?"
"The owner was a known mage, and it was believed to be highly likely that many of his employees were lycans. In fact, he had a large number of animals that were used in the acts there, but I haven't seen a single report on any animal fatalities or remains being found. So I took the liberty of calling up the NSA and asking man over there if they had any interesting traffic on the cellphones in the area that night, and they sent me this."
Director Kensington looked at the picture on the monitor. It was a blurry and fuzzy, but it looked like a very large and upright lion in a suit, following a man.
"What do we know about the people in that picture?"
"I've got nothing on the lion, Sir. But the other man is the night manager of the Hi-Wire casino, and get this: the owner died in a sudden accident that night."
"Does the Hi-Wire employ lycans?"
"We've been led to believe it's one of the mage owned casinos in Las Vegas, which would mean they probably keep them there as servants."
"Slaves you mean," Director Kensington sighed and leaned back in his seat, trying to recall what he could remember about Las Vegas. There weren't any
of those mages' councils there, he remembered that much. Something about the gangsters not allowing them in, and when they left the supernatural residents who remained continued to keep them out.
"Isn't Las Vegas believed to have a significantly large lycan population?" Director Kensington asked.
"All of Nevada does, Sir."
Director Kensington smiled, "Well maybe they finally got fed up with what was going on and decided to finally do something about it."
"Sir, remember that spate of terrorist attacks we had in Reno a couple of months ago?"
"You think this is related?"
"Well, all of those men involved were foreign nationals, and when I reached out to our counterpart at the CIA about them, I was told that they were identified as members of one of the magic gangs the Europeans are always having issues with.
"Now a couple months later and this happens? I'd like your permission to look into this further, Sir."
Director Kensington considered that for a moment. While he was perfectly fine with the lycans deciding that they'd had enough of their bondage, terrorist attacks on malls and arson attacks on buildings in the center of a major city were not something he could ignore. If this was a new trend, he'd best get ahead of it and do what he could to stop it before things got out of hand.
Or worse yet, if this was just the spillover, the things that the mages and their tradition of silence couldn't hide, there were probably worse things going on out there that he really did need to know about.
"Approved. I want you to find out what's going on out there and I want a briefing ten am Friday. Copy me on all inter-agency emails so they know I'm in the loop and don't sit on your requests."
"Thank you, Sir."
Director Kensington watched as Carl closed his laptop and left the room and started to wonder if it just might be time to unlock the stores of silver bullets.
End Book Seven
Afterword
Hello everyone. First I'd like to thank you for having gotten to this point in the ongoing story of Sean and the battle into which he's found himself drawn. If you enjoyed this book, I would appreciate it if you would rate and review it on Amazon. We writers do get rewarded by Amazon when we get four and five star reviews, and the more we get, the more we are rewarded.
So please! I'd appreciate it very much if you gave me a good review.
If you find any typo's or 'wrong words' please feel free to email what and where they were to me. Typo's always make it through, no matter how many people I have checking things.
Some Notes on the Series: 'Vegas Rules' is the start of the second arc in the series. Now that Sean has (hopefully? - we'll just have to wait and see) secured his home and isn't worried about being attacked when he goes to bed each night, he's got a new worry: everybody else. This is going to present a whole new series of challenges and problems, and then there's that whole 'dark cloud on the horizon' that some of the seers are muttering about (how come they always mutter? Can't they talk normally like the rest of us?) But yes, there are a bunch more books coming. About six. I haven't detailed out the plots of all of them, yet, but most of them have been roughed out. There's just a lot going on in the story now, a lot more.
And then there's that dark cloud... (Arc Three perhaps?)
Book number eight in this series (The Valens Legacy Series) should be out before end of May 2018. I haven't titled it yet, sorry. The short story idea that I've mentioned elsewhere I will be giving a shot too as well, so wish me luck on that.
Some Recommendations: I took a month off to write book eight in the Portals of Infinity series (Portals of Infinity: The Seven Worlds) under my other name (John Van Stry - the one I was born with). Because several authors I enjoy were bugging me to, so it was only fair. So if you haven't checked that series of mine out (it's a little more tame on the sex scenes), you might want to. Some other people who I enjoy reading in this genre and you might as well: William D. Arand, Blaise Corvin, Michael-Scott Earle, Elliott Kay. You may also want to check out this group on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/haremlit/
Again, thank you for your support and for buying my books.
My Amazon Author's webpage:
https://www.amazon.com/Jan-Stryvant/e/B06ZY7L62L/
Occasional announcements at:
https://stryvant.blogspot.com/
Jan Stryvant website at:
http://www.vanstry.net/stryvant/
Email:
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