by Martha Carr
“What the hell do you want?”
“Ah, shit!” The second Kilomea stumbled back into the half-Elf, still flailing with two fifty-five-pound coonhounds attached to his limbs. Both magicals fell in a pile of fur, teeth, and grunts.
Rex and Luther leapt off him and skittered out of the way before they turned to snarl, their hackles raised. “Can’t crush us that easily, man.”
“Yeah.” Luther licked his muzzle repeatedly and snorted. “But I think you might have fleas.”
“Don’t move.” Lisa hovered over the recovering half-wizard and the hound-bitten Kilomea. “I mean it.”
“We almost had it taken care of,” the half-wizard snarled. “And you fucked the whole thing up.”
Johnny looked at the guy and flexed his arm around the Kilomea’s throat. This big guy had better be the right guy. Instinct told him it was Yarren. “Sure. Y’all almost had the senator murdered right here in his home. Is that what you were takin’ care of?”
“What?” The downed Kilomea raised his hands in surrender to Lisa’s firearm and shook his head. “Man, you have this whole thing—”
“These brutes have been stalking me for the last three weeks!” Hugh shouted and fumbled with his thin-framed glasses to straighten them on the bridge of his nose. “Take care of it!”
“Well, hold on now.” Johnny turned to Hugh and flicked the point of his blade toward him. “We have this under control, Senator. You let us—”
“If they’re still breathing, it isn’t under control!” Hugh stormed across the living room and snatched the wayward pistol off the floor. His house shoes crunched across the shattered glass of his coffee table as he approached Johnny and the Kilomea he’d tackled. The man lifted the gun toward the Kilomea’s head and thumbed the hammer back. “I can’t even pay someone to do a job the right way.”
“Johnny, watch out!” Luther ran up the seated Kilomea’s back and launched off the magical’s shoulders toward the angry senator.
The dwarf rolled aside, ducked beneath Hugh’s outstretched arm and the pistol at the end of it, and delivered a sharp blow to the underside of the man’s forearm. The weapon jerked up to the ceiling and fired to rain plaster and wooden splinters around the living room. Luther’s front paws landed on the senator’s chest a second before Johnny disarmed the man with a deft twist of his wrist. The firearm skittered across the floor and took shards of glass with it.
“And stay down!” Rex shouted from behind the couch as Luther landed on Senator Hugh’s chest. The impact knocked the man’s glasses completely off his face, and he wheezed at the extra weight pinning him down.
“Point a gun at the wrong two-leg again, asshole, and you’ll get much more than that!” Luther snarled in the man’s face and snapped his jaws an inch from the senator’s nose.
“That’s enough.” Johnny snapped his fingers, and the hound stepped off the wheezing man’s chest. When the Kilomea behind him stirred, the bounty hunter turned sideways and pointed his knife at the magical’s throat again. “You too. Every one of y’all’s lost your damn minds.”
Groaning, Hugh slapped the ground beside him until he finally found his glasses and fumbled with a shaking hand to put them on. “You,” he seethed at Johnny. “You’re the one they sent?”
“Maybe. And you’re the one who should be grateful for a hand, not reachin’ for someone else’s gun to shoot a guy when he’s down.”
“That’s his gun!” the half-wizard shouted. “He pulled it on us.”
Johnny glanced at Lisa and nodded. “Go ahead and check ʼem, darlin’.”
“Arms up.” With one hand, Lisa kept her service weapon trained on the half-wizard. With the other, she patted him down, then gestured with her weapon for him to stand back. “You too, big guy.”
The second Kilomea nursed his hound-shredded forearm as he rose to his feet with a grunt and slowly raised both arms. “We didn’t come here to shoot anyone. Honest.”
“Someone had to take it to a whole new level,” the half-wizard muttered and glared at Hugh.
“They’re clean,” Lisa said.
“All right, enough.” Johnny reached toward the senator and offered him a hand up.
The man scoffed and pushed to his feet without assistance. “Every single one of you can’t send your kind to do anything right the first time. Hell, not even the second or third time.”
Johnny blinked at him. “What was that?”
“You heard me. Even the damn FBI’s been compromised. And now you’re taking the side of these brainless, invading ingrates!”
“You piece of shit,” Yarren roared and launched himself toward the senator, both hairy, claw-tipped hands stretched toward the man’s throat.
“Hey!” Johnny punched the Kilomea in the gut and whipped his knife up to point the tip at Senator Hugh’s throat. “Now I’m here to keep y’all from tearing each other apart. And I ain’t gettin’ paid for that.”
Hugh snarled at him. “Do your job.”
“Oh, sure. I aim to do exactly that, Senator, and without you gettin’ in the way. Luther. Keep an eye on our host.”
“You got it, Johnny. He tries anything funny, I’ll jump him again.”
“Ha-ha.” Rex barked behind the couch. “’Cause you jumped on him.”
“You got it over there, darlin’?” Johnny nodded at Lisa.
“Yeah.” She adjusted her grip on the pistol. “Rex has my back.”
“You know it, lady.”
“Anyone moves,” the dwarf added, wagging a finger from Hugh to the three magicals who’d invaded the man’s home, “I can’t promise that any of y’all are leavin’ this house in one piece. Understand?”
No one responded, but that was all the answer he needed. With a grunt, he headed down the hall toward the garage.
“W-where are you going?” Yarren growled after him.
“Findin’ a way to make sure everyone’s comfortable. We’re gonna hunker down and have us a little chat. Sit tight.”
Chapter Twelve
“Whoa, Johnny.” Rex sniffed the leg of the solid oak dining chair and sniggered. “When you said sit tight, you meant literally.”
The dwarf grunted as he finished tying the thick knot of rope behind the chair, which groaned at the sharp tug. The unidentified Kilomea seated in it grimaced and stretched his hands where they’d also been tied behind his back. “Do you think you can go any tighter?”
“You’re a big fella.” He slapped a hand on the magical’s shoulder and nodded. “I’m sure you’ve been through worse.” He dusted his hands off and glass crunched as he crushed it beneath his heavy boots when he moved across the living room. Now that everyone was secure, he dropped onto the cushion of the expensive leather couch and crossed one leg over the other. “There. Now you have got a fair chance to say what needs to be said without tossin’ around fists or spells.” His next pointed look was aimed at the senator. “Or bullets.”
Hugh struggled against the rope tying him tightly to his chair. “This is outrageous! You people broke into my home, damaged my property, and now you’re interrogating me like I’m one of your suspects?”
Strapped to the chair beside him, the half-wizard inclined his head toward the senator and muttered, “Technically, you’re the only person in the room.”
“Don’t argue semantics with me, you low-life alien scum.”
“Whoa, now.” Johnny slung an arm over the back of the couch and raised his eyebrows. “It sounds like someone has a few things to say about magicals. And it ain’t pretty.”
“You have no idea who you’re messing with, you pathetic excuse for a—”
“Luther.”
The smaller hound darted toward the senator and nipped lightly at the man’s ankle with a snarl. Hugh shrieked and tried to lurch away, but the rope held him firmly. “That means stop talking, numbnuts.”
“I think we’ve had enough outta you for the moment, Senator. What d’ya think, darlin’?” Johnny turned toward Lisa who was seat
ed beside him on the couch.
She tapped the barrel of her service weapon against her thigh and tilted her head. “I think Senator Hugh has had his say, yes. At least, we know his side of the story.”
“We sure do.” The dwarf pointed his knife-tip at Yarren, who sat strapped to the fourth chair at the end of the half-circle Johnny had positioned them in. “If you have somethin’ to say, now’s the time.”
Yarren’s eyes widened, and he glanced at the half-wizard beside him, then his fellow Kilomea on the other side of Senator Hugh. He exhaled a massive sigh that ruffled the white-tipped ends of his thick facial hair. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
The bounty hunter snorted. “A sentiment shared by every fella findin’ himself tied up in someone else’s livin’ room. So what’s the deal, huh? ’Cause the way I heard it, you’ve been terrorizin’ Senator Hugh here for a little longer than only the last few days. And someone mentioned blackmail.”
Hugh scoffed. “Don’t say it like it’s so blasé—”
“One more word outta you until I say, Senator, and you’ll be sharin’ that chair with my hound.”
“Yeah. On your back,” Luther added with a low growl.
“But the rest of y’all, feel free to chime in whenever it feels convenient.”
Soft, slow footsteps whispered down the hall. Cody appeared first with his camera, followed by his sidekick with the boom, Alicia with the bandana, Phil, and two other crewmembers. Howie’s cane clicked across the wood, and when he peered around the corner and saw Johnny on the couch, he spread his arms and shrugged.
Lisa immediately pulled her Stephanie illusion up and slipped her service pistol into its holster.
“Who are those people?” Hugh demanded. “Get them out of here! This is my home. You’re on private property.”
Johnny sniggered. “Naw, they can stay. I think it’s a good idea to get all this on film anyhow.”
“What the hell for?” The senator jerked against the ropes, tried feebly to free himself, and failed miserably. “No one said anything about you filming your sick little freakshow!”
“Oh, you ain’t seen my show?” Johnny shrugged. “Huh. Your loss. Now, fellas. I believe you were ʼbout to get down to it, yeah?”
“We might as well get it over with, Yarren,” the half-wizard muttered. “We’re strapped to fucking chairs and I don’t see another way out.”
“Percy?”
The other Kilomea sighed heavily. “We don’t have a choice, man.”
Yarren nodded slowly and closed his eyes for a moment. “Fine. This whole thing started when we heard about some of the new bills this senator was tryin’ to get passed. They were only at the Maryland level, sure, but I live here. We all live here, and I couldn’t simply sit back and wait for these politicians to start overturning lives left and right. We deserve as much of a chance as the next guy. It doesn’t matter where we’re from.”
Lisa and Johnny exchanged a glance, and she leaned slightly forward on the couch. “What bills?”
“It’s fucking segregation is what it is,” Percy growled.
“What is?” Johnny asked.
“This douchebag and all his stuck-up political bozo friends wanna make slaves outta magicals in this state—”
“That’s absurd!” Hugh shouted. “You’re still getting paid—a-ah!”
Luther jumped into the senator’s lap and snapped in the man’s face. “Strike one!”
“Get this mongrel off me!”
“Johnny, what’s a mongrel?”
The dwarf ignored his hound and the senator and focused instead on the disgruntled magicals’ story. “Keep talkin’.”
“The bill would pay magicals half state minimum wage. Max.”
“Now, I know the two of y’all Kilomeas are some fairly hairy fellas as all Kilomeas are.” Johnny scratched the side of his face and squinted at them. “But y’all have illusions at your disposal, don’tcha? Spells or whatever the hell does it.”
“Sure we do,” Percy replied with a slow nod. “But an illusion doesn’t do shit if every employer in the state gives a mandated blood test to every damn worker—the kind that identifies whether or not you have magic in that blood. Understand?”
Johnny leaned toward Lisa and muttered, “Do you know about anythin’ like that?”
“It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Huh.” He studied Yarren carefully. “That don’t sound like an appetizin’ new bill to me, man. I’ll give you that much. But comin’ to the senator’s house now and again to give him a little shakedown ain’t the way to change lawmakin’.”
“That’s not what happened,” the Kilomea protested.
“Don’t you dare try to worm your way out of this.” Hugh seethed helplessly. “All the evidence is stacked against you. The FBI sent this damn dwarf here to take you away and get you out of my hair. If you were innocent, they wouldn’t have—”
“This damn dwarf said enough outta you, Senator.” Johnny whistled, and Luther jumped into the man’s lap again and this time, toppled him backward.
Hugh shrieked when his head and his twisted hands behind his back met the wood floor. “D-don’t! Don’t l-let that filthy animal touch me!”
“Who are you talking about, huh?” Luther hopped back and growled in the senator’s face. “Me or one of these other guys? Either way, you’d be wrong.”
“Yeah, we’re hounds, dipshit!” Rex added with a bark, although he stayed between Johnny and the three magicals tied to their chairs around Hugh.
The dwarf gestured toward Yarren. “Keep talkin’.”
“I went to his office first,” the Kilomea continued. “I made an appointment and everything and brought the petition we’d made up with signatures from the guys at Canton Exports & Supplies and nine other companies up north. All of us are hard-labor workers, regular magicals simply trying to live our lives.”
“We had a few thousand signatures too,” the half-wizard added. “Once we got friends and neighbors to pitch in.”
“The first thing Senator Hugh asked me when I stepped in his office was whether or not I belonged here.” Yarren glared at the senator’s feet dangling over the edge of the upturned chair. “Whether I was human. I’m not gonna lie about who I am to anyone and he turned me out for it without even getting to the petition at all.”
Hugh growled indignantly. “It’s not your place—”
“Shut up!” Johnny roared. He tossed his utility knife at the man’s head, and the tip buried itself a quarter of an inch into the wood floor just shy of Hugh’s right ear. “That ain’t a miss, Senator. That’s a warning.”
The man’s face drained of all color and he stared at the ceiling.
“So you came to blackmail this bigoted human thinkin’ he’d kill the pay-cut bill?”
“No, man. The guy sent someone after my family.” Yarren shook his head. “That’s where I draw the line.”
“How exactly?” Lisa asked.
“They caught my brother as he was coming off work. Two assholes in suits beat the living shit out of him and gave him a message for me—that Senator Hugh said to drop the petitions and stay the hell out of politics.”
Percy shook his head and growled. “Fucker.”
Johnny’s eye twitched. “Is that it?”
“No. We found the guys who beat Maurice and followed ʼem—me, Percy, and Evan. You might not think it, but Ev’s pretty decent with a camera.”
“Good enough. The newspapers will pay for a few shots, I bet,” Evan added with a gruff nod.
“This asshole’s goons beat seven different magicals to a pulp in the last three weeks,” Yarren continued. “We have shots of ʼem all and pics of his victims too—the ones who are trying to stand up for their right to be here like we are.”
“Until we pounded those bastards’ faces into the cement.” Percy growled with satisfaction.
“Yeah. We finally got ʼem.” Yarren swallowed thickly. “And we came here to talk to t
his poor excuse for a leader in person and show him the pictures. We tried to tell him we know what was happening and would go to the press if he didn’t do something about it.”
“That piece of shit pulled a gun on us,” Evan shouted. “We don’t even have guns.”
“He doesn’t give a fuck about what happens to any of us,” Percy added. “We came to make this peaceful, man. And he doesn’t wanna listen.”
“Senator?” Johnny turned slightly on the couch cushion to stare at the soles of the man’s house shoes. “Now would be the time for you to say somethin’.”
“You’ll all be behind bars when I’m done with you!” Hugh spat the words with ugly virulence. “And I’ll shoot these fucking dogs myself.”
Luther cocked his head. “Okay, see, I still can’t tell who you’re talking about.”
“I think I’ve heard everythin’ I need to hear.” Johnny stood from the couch and strode toward the senator’s overturned chair. He squatted beside the man’s head that glistened with beads of sweat and fixed him with a hard look. “You made your bed on this one, didn’t ya?”
“I’m protecting the good people of Maryland from being taken advantage of. You Oriceran freaks have magic. What the hell do you need money for?”
The dwarf sniggered. “You’d hate to see my place back home.” He grasped the back of Hugh’s chair and hefted it upright again. The man yelped in surprise and the chair creaked beneath him. Johnny bent down to take hold of his utility knife and jerk it out of the floor.
“Oh! That’s the best damn decision you’ve made since you got here,” Hugh snapped. “Not get these goddamn ropes off me.”
Johnny stepped toward Evan and sliced through the ropes binding the half-wizard to his chair. “Go on. Get up.”
“For real?”
The bounty hunter cut Yarren and Percy free as well and nodded toward Lisa. “Y’all are gonna hand over your numbers to this good-lookin’…redhead over here.”
She looked up at him with wide eyes. “They are?”