Blind Date: An Ian Dex Supernatural Short Story (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department)

by John P. Logsdon

  “You’re a real piece of shit,” I stated. “I hope you lose, just so you can feel the sting of it.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Jack said, smiling in a not-so-happy way. “Let’s let the games begin.”

  I shook my head and took a deep breath, getting ready to go out into the field.

  But Jack stopped me.

  “One more thing I wish to throw into the mix,” he said as a smile crept onto his face, “in order to even the playing field even further.”

  “Now what?”

  “You may only use cheesy pick-up lines.”

  I blinked at him. “What?”

  “You took away my Voice from the battle, so I shall take away your smooth talking.” He obviously caught the hesitation on my face, because that turd of a grin grew even wider. “You shouldn’t have tipped your hand, Officer Dex.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You said you avoided utilizing transference of energy with Touch because you felt it manipulated the ladies.”

  I shrugged. “So?”

  “So that means that you’ve learned to compete with just your wiles alone.” He breathed deeply. “Right or wrong, I’ve relied on Voice for many years, which means that I’m well out of practice at the game you play so readily. You giving up Touch doesn’t really hinder your capability as much as my giving up Voice hinders mine.”

  “Fine,” I said, thinking that it would only make it so he’d win faster and that would be that. “I’ll use cheesy pick-up lines.”

  “But you’ll do it sincerely?” he asked, tilting his head.

  “You have Rachel and Isabel, Jack,” I answered. “What choice do I have?”

  Chapter 7

  We waded out into the crowd and I immediately crossed over to the lady who had been giving me the eye earlier.

  Coming up with one-liners was a snap for me. Throughout the majority of my youth, I’d learned exactly what not to say to the ladies, so here was a chance to prove that those god-awful methods were just as shitty now as they were then.

  As I approached, she lowered her drink and turned slightly in her chair. Her leg was bouncing slowly and her eyes were conveying a serious level of interest.

  I took a deep breath, swallowed my pride, looked down at her dress, and said, “Nice legs. What time do they open?”

  This is usually where I got slapped or felt the sting of alcohol splashing in my eyes.

  But that didn’t happen.

  I winced as I glanced up at her, only to find her eyes were twinkling.

  “For you they open at midnight,” she said, taking a peek at her watch.

  “No shit?” I asked, perplexed that the line had actually worked.

  In response, she swirled her drink and seductively took a sip. I gulped. She was seriously interested. To be fair, she had already been showing signs of interest before I came over, but I’d thought certain that my pick-up line would have quenched that thirst in an instant.

  “Uh, okay,” I said, amazed as I held out my hand. “Care to join me over in the VIP area?”

  We moved over and took a seat.

  Just as I was about to ask her name, Jack showed up with a dark-haired beauty on his arm.

  “It appears as though we have both garnered our first catches of the day,” Jack announced, looking triumphant.

  “Well, I have anyway,” I replied and then said “Hello, Beatrice” to the woman on his arm.

  “You two know each other?” Jack asked, obviously confused.

  “She works this club, Jack,” I explained as gently as I could while keeping my voice down. I didn’t want to hurt Beatrice’s feelings, after all. “Not works at the club, but rather uses the club as her base of operations.”

  “I don’t under—” He paused and then spun on her. “You’re a prostitute?”

  “Could you say it any louder, fella?” Beatrice answered with a snort.

  Jack yanked his hand away, looking as though he’d just come in contact with a leper. As if what he did for a living was any better. I blinked at myself. Actually, I had no idea what he actually did for a living. My guess was “nothing.”

  “So I’m assuming that’s a no-go, then?” said Beatrice, giving Jack her best duck-face.

  “Sorry,” I said with a frown as she then glanced over at me.

  “It’s no biggie.” She held up her thumb and pointed it at Jack. “This guy seemed a little creepy to me anyway.”

  “I beg your pardon?” he replied with wide eyes. Then he scoffed and added, “At least I’m not a prostitute.”

  “No,” I interjected before Beatrice could, “you’re a dude who uses magic to trick chicks into falling in love with him.”

  “Exactly,” Jack replied with a firm nod. “Thank you for coming to my defense, Officer Dex. I wasn’t expecting that.”

  Beatrice walked away after rolling her eyes at Kidnap Jack. I couldn’t blame her.

  “The nerve of that woman,” he said. “Could you ever imagine such a thing?”

  “Not in a million years,” I said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

  “Nor I.” After another shake of his head, he spun back to the lady I’d brought over and said, “So who have we here?”

  “Claudia,” she answered, “but if you had a problem with Beatrice, you’re not going to like me much better.”

  “Say it isn’t so,” Jack said, his jaw falling slack.

  I gave Claudia the once over. It wasn’t possible to know all of the working girls in the city, obviously, but I usually knew those who were in the more posh clubs.

  “You new in town?” I said.

  “You’ve already gone past your allotted pick-up lines, buddy,” she said to me.

  “What? Oh, no. That wasn’t a line. I’m just pretty familiar with all the women in your profession around here…”

  I trailed off as she pushed by me and headed back to the bar.

  “I suppose that leaves us both at zero,” Jack said. “Are you sure you don’t want to go back to Voice and Touch?”

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  Before he had a chance to say anything else, I turned and headed back into the crowd. It was one thing to have to compete with this guy, but I didn’t have to hang out and chat with him. What I wanted to do was punch him in the head, but that could spell doom for Rachel and Isabel.

  Fun.

  I spotted three gorgeous women sitting next to each other by the bar and figured that I’d go for the gusto on this one. The worst that could happen would be them slapping me, throwing drinks at me, and getting me kicked out of the joint for the night.

  “Going to shoot for three, eh?” Jack said, having sidled up beside me. “I was going to separate one from the herd, personally, but this should prove amusing.”

  Separate one from the herd? What was it with this guy?

  I grunted at him and said, “You’re a real dick, dude.”

  After quickly prepping myself, I walked up to the three ladies, feeling ready to put it all on the line. That’s when I remembered I could only use cheesy pick-up lines with them.

  Ugh.

  “Are you ladies on holiday from heaven or something?” I asked with as much boyish charm as I could manage. “I only ask because you sure look like angels.”

  They giggled.

  What the hell? Seriously? This shit was working. That had to have been one of the crappiest lines ever invented. It should not have worked.

  “Uh…” I said as my brain cramped from the realization that maybe I’d been running from one-liners for far too long. The following attempt would answer that question. “Are you all staying in the same room by chance?”

  “We sure are, sugar,” the brunette said with a Southern accent. The “sugar” bit reminded me of Lydia, but the accent was far different.

  “That’s perfect,” I said with feigned excitement, “because I think you’ll all agree that my shirt would look great on your bedroom floor.”

  They laughed out loud at that.


  Come on!

  “Works for me,” said the blonde.

  “He’s cute,” agreed the redhead.

  This wasn’t happening.

  “Well, okay then,” I said, turning to look back at Kidnap Jack, who was even more flummoxed than me. I spun around again and reached into my jacket. “Uh, let me give you my card and I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  “I have a better idea, sweet thing,” said the brunette. “Let me give you our room key and you can just come straight up when you get back. Room 627.”

  “Okay,” I said as I took the keycard from her. Then I kissed each of them on the hand before walking back to my competitor. I wore a grin so big I could feel my earlobes with the corners of my mouth.

  “I’m…impressed,” he said, nearly scowling. “Technically you didn’t bring them to our designated area, but I suppose that wouldn’t have been too trying to accomplish.”

  “Game’s over, Jack,” I said, tucking the keycard in my pocket. “Let’s get back and set Rachel and Isabel free.”

  “Well…”

  I opened my coat and revealed Boomy. “Don’t make me shoot you.”

  “Fine.”

  Chapter 8

  By the time we got back to Jack’s secret lair, it was obvious that he was more than a bit perturbed.

  “Do I have any calls?” he asked as we walked through the reception area.

  “No, sir.”

  He paused a second and then said, “Good.”

  Jack opened the door to the storeroom and motioned me inside. The mages in the room all had hands aglow, much like they’d been when we’d left, but now Rachel and Isabel had their eyes closed.

  Something was amiss.

  “What’s going on?” I asked as I turned to Jack.

  His response was in the form of a swinging baseball bat, coming straight in toward my head.

  I ducked to the side and the bat bounced off the top of my left shoulder.

  Fucker.

  A quick jab knocked him on his ass, but the mages were in on the act now.

  If you’ve never felt the searing pain of electricity hit you in the ass, you haven’t lived. Then again, unless you were genetically built like I was, chances were if you ever did feel the searing pain of electricity striking your ass, you’d probably die.

  I yelped and dived at Jack.

  The mages wouldn’t fire at me if their idiot leader was in the way.

  Hopefully.

  He struggled to get out from under me, but I was beyond pissed at this point.

  Rearing up, I rained down punches at him like he’d taken my lunch money. After everything this bastard had put me through over the years, including tonight’s events, it felt damn good to open a can of serious whoop-ass on him.

  “Help,” he yelled out between punches. “Do something.”

  One more solid crack to his cheek knocked him out cold.

  This was good and bad.

  It was good because that punch was very cathartic; it was bad because his mages went nuts.

  Fireballs hit me on the side in semi-automatic fashion, blowing me clear from Jack’s limp body. I climbed behind a section of shelves and patted out the flames on my suit. My poor suit!

  “That’s it,” I said, my ire even more pronounced than before. “You don’t destroy a Dormeuil Vanquish II and live to tell the tale, you assholes.”

  Boomy was in my hand in an instant.

  Time to release mayhem.

  I knew they were all waiting for me to turn that corner so they could release the floodgates of pain, but I had something they didn’t: I could see really well in the dark and right in front of me was a large, gray box hanging on the wall. I cracked it open and started dropping circuit after circuit until the lights went out in the stockroom.

  I had ten seconds before an enterprising mage would decide to cast a light spell.

  My eyes adjusted in three seconds, leaving me seven seconds to get it done.

  Two steps later, Boomy belched round after round, dropping mages like they were nothing. I caught one in the middle of casting a light spell. She didn’t make it. A couple more had turned their attention to Isabel and Rachel. I couldn’t have that, so I emptied their final thoughts with two perfectly-placed bullets.

  Unfortunately, one of the mages was smarter than the rest. She’d clearly targeted the location where the explosions from Boomy originated and hit me square in the chest with a bolt of agony.

  I actually screamed before falling back on my ass.

  Fortunately, for once, I’d managed to hang on to Boomy.

  “Son of a…” I wheezed.

  “Stay down,” she yelled across the room, “or I swear I’ll kill your girlfriends.”

  “No,” I whispered, looking at the mage chick from my spot on the floor, where I could see her through the legs of a table, “you won’t.”

  My bullet ended any nefarious plans she may have had.

  But there were other bolts flying, and more than a few fireballs.

  “Rachel,” I said through the connector, “you have to get up and help Isabel get the—”

  “I’m already up,” she replied. “When you killed that last mage, her control over me died too. Isabel is on the ground and I have a shield running, but I could really use some help here.”

  I pushed myself up with a groan.

  “Are they all focused on you?”

  “Sure as hell seems like it.”

  “Good.”

  I switched out the magazine, seating a fresh set of breaker bullets, and then walked straight out into the fray. I was tired of this game.

  By the time I was done, there wasn’t a mage left standing, except for Rachel, of course.

  Just in case, I closed my eyes and reached out to feel if there were any others in the area. This was one of the powers I had decent control over. Usually it only worked in contained spaces, and even then it wasn’t great, but with my senses already heightened, I was able to find two more mages on the run. One was heading toward a null zone at the far side of the room. Keeping my eyes closed, I lifted the gun and dropped him. The other mage was back at the circuit breaker, undoubtedly trying to get the lights back on.

  “Shut your eyes,” I warned Rachel as I took off toward the remaining mage.

  The lights blared to life and I squinted tightly to avoid being temporarily blinded.

  Good thing for me, my retinas were far more capable than most at handling such abrupt changes in brightness. Unfortunately for the mage who had managed to reset the breakers, his eyes were now staring lifelessly at the ceiling.

  I got back to Rachel and Isabel and helped them to their feet. Isabel was wobbling pretty badly. Rachel didn’t look much better, but she was a pro, meaning that she’d have her shit together in seconds.

  “Where’s Jack?” she said.

  I started to point at the spot where we’d been fighting minutes prior, but he wasn’t there.

  “He was right…”

  I paused and checked my pocket for the keycard that the ladies at the Hyde had given me.

  It was gone.

  “Shit, he’s heading back to the Bellagio!”

  Then I paused again and laughed as I remembered what I’d done to his Bugatti.

  “No, wait. He’s not. His car is…”

  Another pause.

  My car keys were gone, too.

  “Fuck! I hate that guy!”

  Chapter 9

  Rachel was all about practicality. She didn’t have a muscle car like Felicia or a classy car like me. No, Rachel drove a light gray Kia Rio that went from zero to sixty…eventually.

  Okay, so I was a bit snobby about things like that, but I had a reputation to uphold. Now, my mystique wouldn’t be tarnished too much if I were merely a passenger in the back with two hot chicks in the front, but Rachel was still too out of it to drive, meaning I was sitting in the driver’s seat as we puttered back to the Hyde.

  “Lydia,” I called to base
from my connector, “can you verify that my car is at the Bellagio, please?”

  “It is, honey buns,” she answered. “I take it from that question that you’re not with your vehicle?”

  “You got it.”

  “Are you certain you don’t want back-up on this?”

  “I’ve got Rachel,” I answered with a quick look over at my partner. Her eyes were half-opened. “Mostly. Anyway, we have a handle on things.”

  That wasn’t true at all, but now that Jack was without his mages, he couldn’t be all that challenging to take down.

  “If you say so, sugar.”

  “I’ll keep you posted, baby,” I said and then shut off the connector. “Rachel, you need to get up and get your head in the game.”

  “Huh?”

  “Cast a spell on yourself or something,” I demanded. “I doubt Jack has much to offer by way of fighting at this point, but I don’t want to risk it, and I need you to make sure he doesn’t get to Isabel again.”

  “Right, right,” she replied. “Just drive slow and I’ll be fine when we get there.”

  “Not much choice to drive beyond slow in this thing,” I pointed out.

  “Good.”

  We got to the Bellagio and I started searching for a spot nearby to park. I could have gone to the valet, but…no. I knew a lot of these people and they’d raise a serious eyebrow at me for driving this thing.

  Again, I had a reputation to uphold.

  I parked and turned to Rachel.

  “Listen to me carefully,” I said, grabbing her by the shoulders and staring into her eyes. “You need to be ready in case this guy is setting me up again, and we both know he loves doing that.”

  “Yeah, true. I’m ready.”

  “You can’t let him get near you,” I warned. “His Voice is overpowering.”

  She sneered. “I know.”

  I was about to get out, but Rachel’s eyes were still cloudy.

  This was a tough spot to be in. If I didn’t go in and verify those ladies in 627 were okay, Jack could be feeding on them. If I did go in and I left a sluggish Rachel out here to defend herself and Isabel alone, Jack might get to them.

  “Rachel, are you sure you’re going to be able to handle all this?” That was a statement that I’d said to chicks on many occasions, but this time I meant it in an entirely different way. Then a thought occurred to me. “Actually, can you drive yet?”