The Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Series: Books 1 - 4 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department Box Sets)

by John P. Logsdon

  “Ugh,” said Rachel. “Anyway, so he’s still bound to have some bodyguards around and even though his apprentices aren’t likely to be anywhere near his skill level, it’s hard to believe that they’ll be weak.”

  “True.” I chewed my lip, trying to think of a way through this. “Any suggestions?”

  “We need cover,” she stated.

  “That’d be great,” I said, “but we can’t risk the officers.”

  “Then we bring two solid shooters from the normals,” she replied without inflection.

  “What?”

  “We have two additional amulets that can protect them from Fred and his apprentices.”

  I gave her a quick look.

  She was serious.

  “Last I heard, Rachel, those amulets won’t stop non-magical attacks.” I would have expected a suggestion like this from Felicia, Chuck, or even Warren, but Rachel? No. “Hell, we don’t even know if the amulets will stop magic, do we?”

  “We tested them pretty thoroughly,” she answered. “Doesn’t mean that Fred won’t have some nasty tricks up his sleeve to bypass them, though.”

  “Exactly, and…”

  “Look, Ian,” Rachel said, interrupting me, “the fact is that if these zombies and Fred get through, there are going to be a hell of a lot more casualties than two normals.”

  She had me there. Fred was heading straight into a mass of communities. People were going to get hurt, killed, and possibly even turned into zombies themselves.

  “Uh,” I said, my mouth going dry. “I know that zombie bites don’t make living people into zombies. But what if a zombie kills a person and then says one of those power words?”

  Rachel groaned.

  Chapter 34

  We arrived at the party point to find a bunch of normals standing around wearing Mad Max style outfits. Ripped leathers, bandanas, dirt smeared on their faces, and all sorts of trinkets. They were clearly into this post apocalyptic stuff.

  “They look fun,” Rachel said as we got out of the car.

  I glanced down at my suit. “I feel a little overdressed.”

  “A little?” She snorted and gave me a once-over. “You’re always overdressed, Ian.”

  The rest of the vehicles poured in, sending up clouds of dust.

  Everyone started unloading the barrels as Rachel and I went out to talk to the normals. I had motioned them all to quiet down so that we could give them details on how everything was going to work.

  I had to play it cool so as not to give them the full details.

  “Hello, everyone,” I called out so they could all hear me. “My name is Ian Dex and I’m the Chief of the Las Vegas Paranormal Police Dep…” Rachel hit my arm. “Erm, I mean the Las Vegas Paranormal Party Planning Committee.”

  They clapped.

  “This is a, uh, new committee that is in charge of planning parties for, uh, the paranormal community.”

  More clapping.

  “Idiot,” whispered Rachel.

  “Anyway,” I continued, “we’re going to be handing out paint pellet guns to all of you in a few minutes. Then we’re going to do some target practice and get everyone set up for the upcoming battle.”

  I paused and looked around at the nodding heads. Two men in the crowd stood out from the rest.

  One was wearing a baseball hat that said, “I bleed red, white, and blue.” He had on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with a pig on the front. The other guy had on a white t-shirt and a jean jacket with the sleeves cut off. It looked like a makeshift vest. They were both squinting with one eye and seemed to be chewing tobacco.

  I leaned over to Rachel and said, “I think I’ve found our two candidates. Back row, far left.”

  She scanned the area and nodded. “We just have to see if they’re good with guns.”

  “Seriously?” I replied. “Look at them again.”

  “Okay, fair enough.”

  “Head back and see if we have any actual Desert Eagles for them.”

  “What?”

  “Paint pellets aren’t going to kill bodyguards, Rachel.”

  She went to say something, but clearly figured out that I was right. With a sigh, she turned and headed off toward the vans.

  “Okay,” I called out to the crowd again, “in order to make this all official, we’re going need everyone to line up over by that little tent there, show your identification, sign waivers, and be checked for additional weaponry. You may not use any weapons that we do not provide you.”

  Everyone rushed to get in line. Everyone, that is, except for the two men I’d picked out of the crowd. They were more of the moseying type.

  I stepped over and asked them to follow me, away from the line.

  “You two seem a bit out of place here,” I said.

  “Says the guy wearin’ an Armani suit,” the man with the cap said.

  “It’s not Armani,” I replied as if slapped. “It’s a Kiton, thank you very much.”

  “And he says we don’t fit in.”

  I took a deep breath and slowly released it. “May I have your names please?”

  Baseball cap guy said, “Name’s Cletus Coltrain and this here is Merle Williams.”

  “Nice to meet you both. I’m Ian Dex.”

  “That’s what ya said when you was up there telling everyone what was going on,” noted Merle.

  “True.”

  I looked back at the line of people. They were all being processed by my crew, along with the help of Portman’s squad. A bunch of others were putting up targets, as well, and it looked like Warren was getting his magical shield underway.

  “Anyway,” I said, turning back to Merle and Cletus, “you look like a couple of fellows who wouldn’t find shooting zombies with paint pellets much of a challenge. Am I right?”

  “I like shootin’ anything,” Cletus replied. “‘Cept animals anyway.” He spat out a wad of his tobacco. “Ain’t fair to the critters.”

  I was taken aback by that. “Really? I’d have thought certain you were both hunters.”

  “Is this some kind of profiling?” Merle said with a squint that was deeper than his normal squint. “Just cause we’s from the south don’t mean we’s a couple of hicks.”

  I looked over their outfits again.

  “But you said you liked shooting things,” I said, pointing to Cletus.

  “And I do,” he replied, sticking out his chest. “Bottles, beer cans, them little plastic army men toys, and such. Also go out to play in them paintball games now and then.”

  “Oh…” I felt like an idiot now. “Sorry, I just…”

  “Ya thought we was dumb, that’s what,” Merle stated as fact. “I’ll have you know that I got me a PhD in electronics and Cletus here is a research scientist at a prestigious firm.”

  Again, I looked at their outfits. “Seriously?”

  “Yep,” Merle said and then turned to Cletus. “Just like I toldya, Cletus, our accents and outfits mark us as dumb. If Einstein had been from Arkansas, we’d still be relying on Newtonian physics for everything.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?”

  I had no answer to that. The fact was that I had been profiling them. I assumed they were just a couple of gun-toting southerners who wouldn’t have any problem popping a bullet into a werewolf, vampire, or whatever else came at them.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said, and I meant it. I felt like a complete asshole. We all know what Rachel would have called me about now, too…and she’d have been right. “I have no excuse for myself.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Cletus said after a moment. “We get it all the time.”

  “Well, it was still wrong.”

  “Yep.”

  I sighed. “So what brings you guys to Vegas, then?”

  Cletus put on a grin so big that his squint drifted away. He was obviously a man who had some big news. Either that or it was a lifelong dream to come to the land of decadence.

  “I won the lottery,” he said proudly
. “Netted me out fifty million when all was said and done.”

  “Wow.” That was solid money. It was the kind of money that could score you a very nice condo at The Martin. “But I thought you worked as a researcher?”

  “I do,” he replied. “Well, I should say I did. Planning on putting that behind me. The research was gettin’ old. Only so much you can do with ants.”

  “Ants?”

  “Yep. Studied ‘em for twenty years. Good fun, but kinda grown tired of it.”

  “I see,” I said, though I didn’t. Why would anyone study ants? They crawled around, lifted stuff up, carried it home, and they’d bite you if you irritated them. “So you came to Vegas as a treat, then?”

  Cletus nodded. “Yep. Came here a month back with my girlfriend, but that ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ thing didn’t pan out.” He spat again. “She happened along but didn’t stay here, is what I’m sayin’. Ended up comin’ back home with me. So I left her there this time and invited my old pal Merle for a trip.”

  “Ain’t never been,” Merle said. “It’s right nice enough, I suppose, but it gets a little borin’. So when we saw about your party, we thought it’d be fun. Could shoot stuff without it bein’ critters and without anybody really gettin’ hurt.”

  I was starting to worry that they weren’t the right guys for the job. But they had their heads on straight. I didn’t want anyone joining Rachel and me who couldn’t think for themselves. They needed to be smart in the ways of hunting, which I’d honestly expected these two to be. However, shooting bottles and shooting werewolves wasn’t exactly the same thing.

  “Gentlemen,” I said finally, realizing that time was growing short and I needed to move, “you’ve proven yourselves worthy of a different mission that will be even more exciting.”

  “I’m listenin’,” said Merle.

  I nodded and then laid out the details for them.

  Chapter 35

  Two hours had passed and the sun was starting its evening descent.

  Turbo’s readings showed that the zombies were about an hour out. He’d upped his count from being roughly five hundred of them to being over seven hundred. Why couldn’t it have gone down to two hundred instead?

  “Griff,” I said as the crew assembled, “you’re in charge while Rachel and I are out.”

  “Understood.”

  “Our purpose is to keep the normals safe,” I explained for the twentieth time. “Each of us swore an oath to that and we’re going to keep it.”

  Nobody replied. Their looks of grim determination were the only responses I needed anyway.

  Felicia and Chuck went into gun-checking mode. They had numerous magazines strapped on. These were the kind that were full of paintballs. They weren’t the same size as your standard pellet, either. I picked one up and twirled it in my hand. They were about the size of small marbles.

  Serena had a table full of bandages, ointments, and elixirs laid out. Beyond her normal laying of hands, she was also quite versed in alchemic remedies.

  Rachel took a moment to align with Griff and Jasmine. Whatever it was they were doing during these little sessions, it got them focused. When they were focused, they were deadly.

  Deadly was good right about now.

  “Lydia,” I said through the connector, “everyone is ready to go.”

  “Promise me you’ll be careful, pumpkin?”

  “We all will be, babe,” I answered while heading off to my car.

  “Dex,” Portman called out as he jogged up to me, “I heard about your plan to go directly after the necromancer. I want to join you.”

  I shook my head at him, which was not something you ever learned to feel comfortable doing to a werebear. Of all the bad ass people I knew, Portman was the only one who could beat me in a hand-to-hand fight.

  “I need you to help protect the normals.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” We stood there for a second. “Besides, if we fail, you’ll get to meet him face-to-face anyway.”

  “True.” He slapped me on the shoulder. It hurt. “Well, you can’t be driving off in the desert in that fancy car. It won’t make it over the first bump.” He pointed over near the vans where there sat a big jeep. “Take that.”

  I eyed the vehicle. It wasn’t exactly me, but he was right that it would be more appropriate for where we were going. Another glance at the jeep and then at my suit made me admit that my choice of garb was getting worse by the minute.

  “Why are there no doors on it?” I asked as we walked toward the vehicle. He just looked at me as if I were stupid. When it came to things like this, I apparently was. “Is it at least an automatic transmission?”

  It wasn’t.

  Fifteen minutes later I sat in the passenger side while Rachel took the wheel. She had an uppity grin that even Griff could have appreciated.

  So I couldn’t drive a stick? So what? I’d never had the need to drive one. My vehicles were meant for comfortable cruising, not four-wheeling. Rachel had explained that driving a manual transmission gave you more control. I had no need or desire to become “one with the vehicle.” To me, a car was a machine that you used for getting from point A to point B. That’s it. Now, there was no need to have a cheap, crappy car to do that, but that was another matter entirely.

  Cletus and Merle were in the backseat looking over their Desert Eagles. I’d made sure they each had two of them just like us. One with paintballs and one with 50 caliber breaker bullets.

  “So the real bullets is for any werewolves and such, right?” asked Merle.

  “That’s correct.”

  I heard Cletus release a heavy breath. “I’m sorry, mister, but I gotta say somethin’ here. Ya do realize that I ain’t gonna be investin’ in nothing?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, turning back to look at him.

  “Just breaking down the logic of this is all,” he replied. “Ya broke us off the rest of them folks and gave us a talkin’ to, then ya went and found out how I done won a load of cash, and then ya started givin’ me and Merle a special mission tellin’ us about werewovles and whatnot. I know that junk is all hooey and so does Merle, but we played along.” He eyed the real Desert Eagle. “So here we are gettin’ special treatment. Can only mean one thing: Ya want money.”

  To be fair, I could see his point. If I were on the other side of all this, I’d likely be thinking the same thing. It must have seemed rather fantastical to them, after all. Hell, I remember being a kid and thinking that vampires, werewolves, and magic was all a bunch of bullshit. Then I got introduced to it firsthand.

  “Rachel,” I said flippantly, “would you mind providing a demonstration for our new friends?”

  She pulled the truck behind a mound and hopped out. Obviously we didn’t want to risk Shitfaced Fred seeing anything.

  Merle and Cletus were looking on attentively when she started twisting her hands together. They began to glow.

  “What do you think of that?” I said.

  “Buddy, you gotta remember what we do for a livin’,” said Merle. “This ain’t nothin’ but basic electronics.”

  “You might want to hold on,” she announced before the truck started lifting off the ground.

  “Impressive,” Cletus admitted. “Putting hydraulic lifts in is a purdy good effect.”

  The truck was up about ten feet in the air now. Rachel began spinning it slowly to give us a panoramic view. The lights were off and there was no glowing around the vehicle, so Fred couldn’t have spotted us. Plus, we were still too far from him anyway.

  “Ain’t never seen hydraulics lift this high and do spins,” Merle admitted, holding on so tight that his knuckles had turned completely white. “This might be worth investing in.”

  “No investments needed,” I replied. “This isn’t a game, gentlemen. Your final piece of proof is about to happen. Cletus, I would sincerely suggest you follow Merle’s lead and hold on.”

  Rachel flicked her w
rist and the truck began doing summersaults. Fortunately, she limited it to three or I would have hurled.

  Once the jeep was back on the ground, she cast three small fireballs and blew up rocks around us. Then she cast a small rain shower to cool off our pals.

  “How much ya need?” Cletus said with a look of awe. “I’ll give ya damn near everything I got. This is gonna make billions.”

  Rachel sighed, jumped in, and looked back.

  “Listen up, boys,” she said sternly. “I’m only going to say this once. This is not some joke. This is real. I’m a mage, he’s an amalgamite, and…”

  “A what?”

  “He’s a mix of a bunch of things,” she clarified. It didn’t help, but she pressed on. “Anyway, werewolves are real, so are vampires, fae, werebears, pixies, mages, wizards, necromancers, zombies, djinn, shape shifters, dragons, and pretty much everything else you’ve ever heard of, though most of the other types don’t come to the desert except on vacation.”

  “You ain’t shittin’, are ya?” Merle said in a shaky voice. His look was deadly serious. “These things really exist?”

  “You’re about to find out first hand, gentlemen,” I answered while Rachel got the truck in gear. “I will warn you that if you don’t take this seriously, you’ll both end up injured or dead.”

  We bounced through the dirt, following the route that Turbo had laid out for us.

  It wouldn’t be long before we were within walking distance, so I reached into my attache and pulled out a pair of black tennis shoes. They’d look ridiculous with my suit, but I hadn’t thought to bring anything along for hunting.

  “I don’t suppose we can back out?”

  “Sorry, Merle,” I replied with a quick shake of my head. “We need you guys. If this necromancer makes it through, Vegas is going to be overrun with zombies before the night is over.”

  “And after that,” added Rachel, “it’s only a matter of time before they branch out to other cities.”

  “Well, shit,” Cletus said and then spit a wad of tobacco out the back, making me suddenly glad that the jeep had no doors or top. “Shoulda just stayed home with Vera.”