“It’s unnatural, I tell you,” Lamar said, shaking his head with disgust. “They picked the wrong fucking planet to start this bullshit.”
“So wait, are you guys telling me that your mutual leaderships are gearing up for interplanetary war with aliens?”
“See, boo . . . I told you it would ruin the vibe,” Lamar said, stroking her cheek with a thumb. “You’re gonna be all distracted and worried . . . and damn, it’s a full moon.”
“Dude,” Jacques said, leaning across the table and in dangerous proximity to a werewolf’s fist. “Do you hear yourself?”
To her surprise, Lamar sat back and briefly closed his eyes. “Give me a break, man,” he said on a heavy exhale. “It’s a full moon and I ain’t seen her in a month.”
“All right,” Jacques said, sitting back with his hands raised in front of his chest. “There’s nothing I can say to that. However, there is the not-so-small matter at hand, namely, we are going to war. The human military has seen the craft crash-land in the swamp, our Central Vampire Intelligence sources say—and when they find it, they’ll freak.”
“Freak?” she said, looking at Jacques slack-jawed. “You mean like I am now?”
“Chérie, we cannot have your human military agitate the enemy with a nuclear threat. That would ruin the ecology of the flora and fauna for years, and for the record, the Fae are beside themselves about that. They’re already ginned up to launch an attack on a human oil company after what was spilled in the gulf. I’m sure the Unseelie will beset the CEO for years behind that fiasco. Therefore, if humans burn the bayou and leave a smoking black hole in it with a missile or napalm, or whatever primitive devices they’d employ, then the Fae will indeed go after our food source—humans. So my council advises we send in a strike team to quietly and effectively eliminate the threat. There you have it in its purest form. We are quietly going to war, but using only our most elite special forces, which would include moi.”
“My point exactly, bro. We’re going to war, and my pack is the squad going in for Alpha Team Wolf,” Lamar said, removing his arm from Arianna’s shoulders, where it had returned after the first outburst. “Look at her. Five eight, built like a brick house, and knows how we roll. So, if I’m gonna buy it from rushing aliens in the bayou, she is definitely one of the last things I’d like to do before I die.”
Jacques released a wistful sigh and nodded. “I will grant you that.” He looked at Arianna with a sensual gaze. “I’ve been around a very long time and have yet to find her rival. Perhaps my immortality has made me forget the needs of those with more finite existences . . . and maybe I’m a bit jealous that the moon tonight gave you first rights of refusal.”
“You know, guys,” she said, after a careful sip of merlot, “that it’s rude to talk about a person like they’re not sitting there? Just saying.”
“Our apologies,” Jacques replied, bowing from where he sat. “But like I said, passions do run high, just like bayou politics.”
“Definitely,” Lamar murmured, nuzzling her. “You wanna get out of here? This moon is killing me.”
Lamar’s instincts were dead-on. Hell yeah, she was distracted. Vampires, Werewolves, and the Fae were going to war with aliens, in New Orleans—while there was a huge military base nearby getting nervous about UFOs sighted over at the Naval Air Station—and this brother wanted her to consummate a booty call?
As fine as he was . . . and as hard a body as he had . . . her mind couldn’t focus.
Pressed up against the door to his fly alpha bachelor den, all she could think about was interspecies conflict—little green men versus dudes with fangs. What if the aliens weren’t little green men, but were like those big bastards in Predator . . . or worse, those reptilian jobs with acid saliva like in Aliens?
A pair of hot, broad palms slid over the lobes of her ass, vying for attention as Lamar’s punishing kiss devoured her mouth. She could feel the heat penetrating her jeans as his insistent pelvis caused them to sound like he was about to give her friction burn. The man felt fantastic, smelled so earthy and wonderfully male. A stone-cut chest pressed against her and an eight-pack of abdominal muscles contracted against hers with a groan. Her hands splayed against his muscular back beneath his jacket, and she marveled at the way every bit of sinew seemed to be its own steel cable as his arms enfolded her. No matter how many times she’d experienced being with him, she never tired of the passion and sheer prowess he brought to their encounters.
But his was a different brand than Jacques’s. The latter of the two went in for the kill with the excruciatingly slow and highly skilled awakening of every erogenous zone on her body. Being with Jacques took time; being with Lamar took stamina. Tonight she was short on both.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Lamar breathed on a ragged exhale. “Your mind seems like it’s a million miles away.” He kept kissing her neck and pulling her jeans down.
“It is,” she admitted. “But my body’s here.”
He looked at her with an agonized expression. “You cool with that?”
She nodded and kissed him. “It’s the least I can do for a man about to go to war.”
Slowly shredding her jeans, he closed his eyes and allowed his head to drop back. “Bless you.”
An hour later, she was in the bayou with an RPG launcher equipped with silver and hallowed-earth-packed shells, wooden stakes, silver-alloy-covered titanium Bowie blades, a semiautomatic, and her silver-plated nine that spit silver shells. She was hunkered down as an embedded human with Vampire, Fae, and Werewolf units. All had agreed that she needed to be there as a witness to be sure that it was indeed what they’d all sussed it out to be, an alien invasion.
The downed saucer was partially invisible but huge. The size of it could only be made out because the edges of it sparked in the water. Gators bobbed near it, floating upside down, as did dead swamp catfish.
“Look at this bullshit,” a Fae archer said, his magical bow and arrow cocked toward the craft. “As soon as one of those bastards exits . . . right between the eyes!”
Jacques nodded, motioning with his chin toward the craft as two vampires materialized on the invisible edges of the UFO, each holding black energy-pulse charges. Lamar made a fist, then signaled with two fingers, and the forest lit up with gold gleaming eyes around the ship. He nodded to her.
“Wake ’em up, baby.”
She pointed the RPG launcher and released a shell that exploded against the far side where there were no vampires standing. While completely ineffective against the craft, it did, however, let whatever was inside of it know that humans had discovered it—which was the strategy: make the aliens inside think that only primitive humans had found it so they’d be overconfident and come out to address the nuisance threat.
Several scythe-bearing messenger demons approached Jacques. The leader spoke, his eyes gleaming red, and he bent to bow.
“This alien contagion is giving the demon world a bad name . . . and we have been advised to join your forces. They have no right to apprehend humans and try to incite fear within them—that is our province!”
Jacques nodded. “Agreed. We can use your talent.” But then he smiled. “However, there is no barter between us. You are here for your own reasons and thus we owe you nothing if we are victorious.”
The demon spit on the ground, leaving a sizzling black spot, and then chuckled. “You are wise . . . and as we all say in hell, fair exchange is no robbery.”
Jacques nodded. Arianna just stared. Everybody was out tonight and in rare form. Aliens were so gonna get their asses kicked in a bayou brawl for it all.
The door cracked open and bright UV light flooded the area. Several vampires burned and screamed, covering themselves in their black leather coats.
“Fall back!” Jacques shouted.
“Dog squad, Alpha One! Go, go, go!” Lamar yelled, his pack rushing the tall, willowy figures that slipped through the opening disc.
A silver shrapnel explosion rocked the swamp,
the concussive blast blowing down trees and toppling firing Fae. Magic arrows whizzed through the air, missing their targets. Werewolves howled at the silver bits that stuck into their skins. Only the demons remained standing.
But the moment the scythe-bearers rushed in, the water around the fallen aircraft turned blue. Lamar turned and warned them as he smelled it quickly.
“Out of the water, now! It’s from a cathedral—holy water infused with frankincense!”
Several demons perished as the demon-lethal compound rippled across the surface. Then, very calmly, what seemed like a hundred aliens gathered in the swath of protective light that projected down a ramp coming from their ship. She couldn’t see their faces well but could tell that they were armed, as they were holding various instruments as they marched forward.
“We have studied all your species, and all your folklore and writings,” a collective computer voice said after several moments of adjustment. “Do not attempt to engage us in armed conflict. You will lose. We are only here for the human food source.”
Arianna glanced at Jacques and Lamar. Jacques was injured but so angry that his eyes were glowing red. His men now had on black hoods and gloves and what looked like tanning-salon goggles. Demons had reconvened into a smoking strategic position on higher, drier ground. The Fae had found new branches and had taken aim again. Wolves were circling again, but this time in their human form, wearing body armor and black riot helmets.
“Let me try something,” Arianna whispered, gaining slow nods and worried glances from both Jacques and Lamar. “Everything is energy, right?”
“Oui,” Jacques said on a ragged breath, ripping a medical blood pack open and downing it. He winced as the bad burn on the side of his face began to heal. “But be careful. If they abduct you, chérie, I will be forced to burn—and I will for you.”
Lamar just pounded his fist. “We’ve got your six.”
“Thank you,” she murmured. “Get word to the Fae to be on standby, then we’ll hit ’em with everything we’ve got.” She then stood and dropped her weapon. “I am the lone human out here and I come in peace.” She knew she had to make it quick, because in the distance she could hear Apache military choppers beating the air.
Aliens may have figured out the science of what killed and injured the various supernatural phyla, but the one thing she knew they couldn’t have mastered was magic—that was pure art embedded in the science. It wasn’t textbook; there were too many forms of it to easily decode and address on the fly in a firefight. The Fae stood the best chance at an offense and had just been physically knocked down but weren’t out. Once the ship’s autoresponse to the threat could be disabled, it was gonna be on and poppin’.
She walked forward slowly, needing to get in range. Something had brought the aircraft down. If she could figure out what it was, then maybe they stood a chance.
“You may advance, human,” the collective computer voice said.
Walking out until she was thigh-high in swamp water, she tilted her head to the side and closed her eyes, envisioning the ship dark. They were in Bayou Saint-Jean, the place where her late great-great-ancestor did her thing . . . and aliens thought they could jack with that? Stronger than any magic that had filtered down through her DNA was spirit—now, that was the nuclear bomb that not a single entity out there could harness.
“I call my auntie Marie! I call every one of her apprentices and all the ancestors in my line of every nationality who died on this land. Oust the aliens and give our friends cover against them!”
A blue-white carpet of energy lit up her body and then exploded from her tingly fingertips. Translucent souls fled up from the bayou water as the ship went dark and gray-green figures stood frightened and exposed. Scythe-bearers immediately swooped in, vampires rushed them, and the Fae hit foreheads dead-on with instantly released arrows. Wolves tore bodies in half, savaging the intruders, as Fae and vampires boarded the ship, hunting for survivors and tossing them out to demons and wolves for dispensation.
The mêlée continued for the better part of ten minutes until she saw the lights on the disc begin to slowly power up again. Several loud explosions in the distance made her call out to the units. In her mind she saw helicopters going down as another huge craft sliced through the sky toward them.
“Fall back!” she shouted. “Approaching UFO!”
Immediately all units fled the ship and took cover just in time for a wide swath of UV light to hit the ship and disintegrate it. Then in a spiral of pinpoint tractor beams, dead alien bodies quickly rose. And just like that, the light was gone and the new ship cut through the night sky and was gone.
A collective cheer went up. But this time it was Jacques who quickly placed his arm over her shoulder before Lamar could claim her. “How about a merlot for my favorite human?”
Lamar chuckled and held up both hands in front of his chest. “Even though it’s still technically a full moon out, how can I get mad at a brother in arms . . . especially one who took UV mortar and lived?”
“A Jack Daniel’s on me, my very sporting wolf brother?” Jacques released a sigh of relief. “Thank you . . . I don’t have to explain to you.”
“Oh, no, I feel you, man,” Lamar said with a good-natured smile.
“Then drinks on us!” Jacques said, laughing. “Vampire tab to celebrate the bayou brawl for it all! Let the taps run blood for my men as well!”
A collective vampire cheer went up with the howls from the wolf pack.
“So, what, are we the Fae left out of this party?” a Fae archer called out from the treetops. “We have an ale that will knock you on your ass.”
“I’ve heard, man,” Lamar called out, looking up. “All warriors unite! If it wasn’t for the lady and her people in spirit, dayum!” He glanced at Jacques. “The Fae got a lager that ain’t no joke, son! We should put aside all our differences for one night and just party.”
The lead scythe-bearer smiled a gruesome grin. “It is true about both the ale and the wolf’s suggestion,” he hissed. “We frequent Saints and Sinners all the time. What they have on tap there is truly wicked.”
“I think our alien interlopers will give it due consideration before they attempt to poach in our territories again,” Jacques said with a toothy grin.
“Yeah,” a wolf pack member shouted, gaining barks and howls from the others. “They say, ‘Don’t mess with Texas’; hell . . . how about ‘Don’t fuck with New Orleans’!”
Arianna kept walking and gave Jacques and Lamar a sidelong glance, and then cautiously looked over her shoulder at the demon regiment that had joined them, even though she was still laughing. “Just make sure your boy knows, under no circumstances do I do demons. I’ve still got a soul.”
“Come now, chérie, would I put you in mortal danger?” Jacques crooned, briefly nicking her jugular with his kiss.
Lamar winked at her. “Not on my watch.”
She laughed harder as a handsome Fae archer gave her a discreet nod from a tree branch as she passed. “Good, because after all, a lady has to have some standards.”
The Steeple People
JOHN ALFRED TAYLOR
Gorgo picked up on the first ring. “Couching and Portal, the Steeple People.” She listened for a second, then nodded at Orabas. “It’s Mr. Michaelis.”
Orabas stared at her as he reached for his own phone. Hell’s fashions kept changing, and Gorgo was different every day. This morning she had eyes where her nipples should be, blue ones with long lashes. At least she’d stopped straightening her hair—the snakes looked much more lively now.
“Orabas here.”
“Got you a new customer,” Michaelis said. “Thing that’s a-building needs a steeple.”
“Great, Ben. Standard kickback?”
“Not the standard,” the architect said. “I want more this time, because I’m looking at the fifty-two-footer M-220 in your catalog.”
Orabas nodded his great horse head. “The M-220, transported and installed? Se
e what you mean about wanting more. Back to you once I do the math.”
Actually Gorgo did the math. “We can give him five hundred.”
Orabas hit redial. Michaelis was happy with five hundred and said he’d fax the order, but there was an extra that went with it. “Told my client how good your steeples are for the price—don’t know how you guys do it. Anyway the reverend got interested and wants a plant tour. He’ll be driving through on the way to Atlanta on the twenty-second, if that’s all right.”
Orabas rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine. The twenty-second. Though make sure he calls ahead.”
Afterward he groaned. “Put down Reverend Clyde Simpson for the twenty-second.”
“Already done, boss.”
“Of course,” he said. Gorgo had good ears. She was one smart demon: more than receptionist and secretary, she kept the books and organized the social security and payroll deduction payments for the fictional workforce. All done in her head, except for the documentation after the fact. Orabas guessed she could run the factory on her own, but your average male demon wouldn’t take orders from a woman.
This Reverend Simpson better call ahead if he wanted his plant tour, because casting the glamour took time. The preacher mustn’t see things as they were. One glimpse of Balam with his three heads, and the fool might never speak again, much less sermonize against hell.
But that was a problem for next week, not today. “This accountant I have to pick up—”
“You have lots of time,” Gorgo said. “Toglas is coming in this afternoon, three fifteen on Delta 1024.”
“Don’t see the point.”
Gorgo shrugged. “Whatever headquarters wants, headquarters gets. Won’t find anything wrong with my books. Either set.”
“Of course not.” Somehow this came of Lucifuge Rofocale’s insistence that the company turn a profit, even if it was secondary to their real purpose. And a handsome profit every quarter, with the whole crew working without wages, purely for the love of evil.
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