Feeding Frenzy (The Summoner Sisters Book 1) (14 page)

“Yeah.”

Lia and I nod knowingly.  “We get that a lot, Dan,” I tell him, laying a compassionate hand on his shoulder.  “Just tell us what you saw.  We’re with the good guys, we won’t think you’re crazy, and hopefully we can save her.  And then you’ll never have to solve anything weirder than the case of the missing beer.”

“Ha.  Won’t that be nice?  Okay.  Well.  Sometimes, I go to less savory parts of town,” he starts uncomfortably, trying not to blush.  “I uh, frequent a couple of the establishments there.”

“Like…drugs?  Brothels?” Lia asks.

“No!  No, just…some strip clubs.”  He’s beet red but Lia bursts out laughing.

“Adorable.  All of this going on and you’re shy about some skin?”

“Lia, don’t patronize,” I hiss at her.  I’m afraid that our witness is about to explode, he’s blushing so hard.

“Sorry.  Go on, Dan.”

“Well, I was at one sort of in the area you found Shane and all them, and I could have sworn I saw her.”

“When was this?” I ask.

“Couple nights ago?  Monday, I guess.”

“Do you remember which club?”

He shakes his head, eyes cast downward.  “I was pretty tanked.  Been to a couple places that night.  It’s sort of blurred together.”

“Do you have credit card statements?  Drink receipts?  Anything we might use to figure out which one you went to?”

“I paid cash.”

“Of course you did,” Lia mutters bitterly.

“Was she a dancer or a patron?” I ask him, with another nonverbal chastisement at Lia to be a little more sensitive.

“I don’t know.  Like I said, I was pretty loaded.  I don’t think she was on stage.  I remember her kind of in the back, like she worked there or something.”

“Can you tell us anything else you remember?  Why you thought it was her?  Anything at all you remember about the place?  People, fixtures, routines, anything.”

“At first I didn’t think it was her,” Dan says.  “I mean, what are the odds a missing friend of mine is working at a…gentleman’s club,” he says, blushing again.  “But then she wasn’t found with the others.  She’s got a tattoo on her arm.  The Marine motto ‘Semper fi.’  Her high school boyfriend died in Afghanistan,” he explains.  “The girl I remember had it, too.  It stuck out to me.  Not many people running around in the area with the same hair, build, and ink as Britt.”  He names the first couple clubs he can recall visiting and shrugs.  “That’s about all I remember.”

“That’s a lot to work with.  We really appreciate it, Dan.”  I give him a smile, which I hope thaws the atmosphere a little.  This backfires though, when Lia opens her mouth.

“But if we ever see you or that car near this motel or anywhere else we’re working in the future, this appreciation won’t mean much.  It’s rude to stalk people, kid.”

“Hey, whoa.  I wasn’t stalking you!”

“I know,” I tell him.  “Just, be careful.  And
call
if you think anything is weird next time, yeah?”

“Yeah, right,” he snorts.  “I’ll be sure to do that.  Can I go now?”

“Be my guest.”  Lia stands aside and opens the door.

“Rude!” I say accusingly to Lia after he leaves.

“Randy!” she accuses me back.

“What?” I ask, taken aback.  That isn’t the line of attack I was prepared to defend.

“You’ve been showin’ the goods to every dude with eyes since you started walking again.”

“Yes, between my job as a
beer tub girl
and trying to make up for your surly serial killer routine, I’ve had to play a little more docile than I generally would.  But I was not ‘showing him the goods.’  He’s not my type.”  I quickly quash the guilty memory of my brief encounter with the incubus.  If only that came in a human model.

She raises an eyebrow at me.  “Whatever.  Just…make sure he leaves and isn’t followed.”

We turn out the lights in the room and watch as Dan gets in his car and eventually drives off.  No other cars follow him out of the parking lot, or drive by at all for a good two minutes.  It seems that he’s in the clear.

“I can’t believe we got tailed,” I say when we’ve finished surveilling.  “Especially by something as obvious as his ride.”

“Tail, rides…maybe it was just karma’s way of getting us hooked up,” Lia jokes.  “Speaking of tail, are titty bars even open this late?”

“We don’t need more than one,” I tell her.

“Oh?”

“I know where she is.”

“You mean the freakin’ thing just scooted next door?” Lia yells as we pack up the car.

“Probably even has a little tunnel between the house and the strip joint,” I confirm.

“God dammit!  So, we just needed to walk like, ten feet, and we’d’ve had it?”

“If my suspicions are correct, then yes.”

“Didn’t the cops raid the nearby houses?”

“Aha, but a strip club isn’t a house.”

“Oh, come on.  Surely they checked.”

“And I’m just
positive
the cops wouldn’t have missed anything.  Especially not a face-changing, gender-swapping Greek monster, intent on hiding its faithful baby mama.”

“When you say it out loud like that, it forces me to consider that it is not protocol for the five-oh to check their witness’ feet, and then I can’t keep judging them.”

“Oh, sorry.  I meant it’s unaccountable of them.  I’m a taxpayer and I demand answers.”  I smile at her.

“Really?  A taxpayer now, are you?”

“Well…like, sales tax, yeah.  That counts.”

We fly through the deserted streets of early morning Roanoke.  We stop at Finnegan’s first to drop the GPS tracker off, and then go to the storage unit for the rest of our gear.  Things are a little tight with Clyde, all three rows of seats and all of our earthly possessions in the car, but it won’t be long now.  I’ve got a suspicion that if we don’t book it out of here tonight we may be in for a cozy stay with Detective Kline, which is very much not on my bucket list.

Finally, we pull up in front of the house where we found all of the victims, and more specifically, the strip club next to it.  I leave another charm to help hide our car from people unless they’re really determined to find it—I doubt it’ll work forever, but I’ll buy a few minutes any way I can.  We get out and head to the front of the club.  As expected, though the bouncer has probably bounced, the lights are still on, and music still emanates softly from inside “The Salt Lick”—a very rustic strip joint.  The front door is locked, so we slip around to the side door.

“Shit, there’s a guard here, too,” I whisper to Lia.

“Leave the suits in the car for now, and follow my lead.”

“Are you kidding?  I’m not going any further than this without armor, and neither are you!”  I might as well be talking to Clyde though, because Ophelia keeps drunkenly drifting forward anyways.

“What are you doin’ here,” the guard asks us bluntly as we approach.

“Um, someone told us to meet them here tonight,” I supply, when Lia just giggles.

“Someone told you wrong.  We’re closed.”

“But…you don’t understand,” Lia slurs, walking unevenly up to him.

“And what’s that?”

“
She
said to meet her here.”  Lia giggles again.

“Yeah?  She tell you to bring the gimp along, too?”  The guard motions to me.  So rude!

“S’for her,” Lia says, falling into the guard.

“Yeah, she said…she said I wouldn’t need both arms,” I say with a devilish smirk.

“Girls, do you see what I do for a living?  It ain’t gonna work on me.  We’re closed.”

“She’s gonna be mad,” Lia sing-songs.  “Shouldn’t you at least ask?  You wouldn’t want her to…stop, would you?”

This makes the guard pause.  “You wait right here.”  He moves to head inside.  Lia looks at me frantically, and I suddenly understand her plan.  She kicks his knee out and I let him fall right into an uppercut, rendering him unconscious.  Quickly, we grab his keys, headset and security badge and scamper inside, allowing the fire door to lock behind us.

“Well done,” I say to Lia.  “But maybe next time, fill me in on the plan
before
executing it, yeah?”

“Maybe.”

“How did you even know it’d work?”

“I didn’t, really.  But I could feel the toxin on the guard, so at least I knew he’d met our perp.  I had about an eighty-five percent chance he was battin’ for one team over the other, so I took an educated guess.”

“Coulda been bad…” I say, blushing as I think back to my own experience with incubus toxin.

“Coulda.  Wasn’t.”  She smiles cheekily at me.

I make a face at her, handing over the keys to the car.  “Well, since I’m the ‘gimp’, and you’re apparently lady luck, how about you go get the stuff, and I’ll do a quick tour?”

“Roger, roger.”  She throws me a mock salute and saunters off to the front of the club.

Inside, the club is all cement columns and gold lamé.  It reeks of brass polish, cheap perfume, and dude.  Getting my bearings, I find that the fire door is just behind stage right.  I quickly peek into the front portion of the building—the house—and see that it’s empty.  No audience, no dancers, no bartender even.  But if the lights are still on, and the sound system is still going, then someone must be around.

The fire door starts pounding, the muffled threats of the guard just reaching me.

“Shh!” I say instinctively as I jump and brandish my knife at the sound.  I take a deep breath and re-center myself back in the moment.  The guard can’t get in through the fire door, and we’ve taken his keys and means of communicating with anyone else in the place, so he’s no threat to us.  The worst that can happen is that he’ll run into Lia, and she’ll have to improvise.  That doesn’t worry me too much.  While I fear her getting taken from me by something supernatural, this guy’s just a guy, and she’s pretty good in a tight spot.  I, on the other hand, am feeling less than confident all by my lonesome.  I miss my armor and the use of both hands.  I follow the eerie, bluish lights that are all that illuminate the backstage area to the space where the dancers must get ready with my steel knife in my good hand and an oaken practice knife in the left.

Here, I see long mirrors lit from every direction by small yellow bulbs, and a pervasive dusting of glitter, sequins, and hairspray on the surrounding surfaces, but no signs of life.  Same thing goes for the bathrooms right next to that.  I continue down the slightly better-lit corridor containing the dancer’s lounge.  To the right are a few private rooms for more intimate parties, I assume.  I check the rooms.  The first one is empty, containing only dirty highball glasses and vinyl surfaces.  The next room I peek into contains a gentleman rapt with attention.  He reaches outside of my vision for something, and I quickly close the door.  Not the kind of action that interests me.

In the third room, I hear low voices.  Eventually the male voice stops.  I stand at the ready, waiting for him to come out, but no one ever does.  The female voice begins humming what sounds like a lullaby, but no other voice joins her.  I remember what Lia said, about wanting to get the incubus somewhere to herself.  There are two kinds of privacy: the kind where no one else is around, and the kind where everyone knows what you’re doing but they don’t care.  An abandoned house connected to a private showing room at a strip club?  That’d be choice c—all of the above.

“On to something?” Lia whispers in my ear.

“Shit, Lia, I almost stabbed you,” I hiss back, trying to calm myself again.

“You should be more observant.  I’m lugging your armor and a quadruped.”

“Your mother.”

“I’m’a tell her you called her a goat.  So.  What’s in there?” she asks, focusing on the third door.

“Well, there
were
two people.  Either the dude is being quietly serenaded now, or he’s mysteriously gone,” I say darkly, stepping into my gear.

“Most interesting.”  She helps ease me into the jacket as best as I can manage with my arm all discombobulated.  “Shall we have a look-see?”

“I’ll cover.”

She hands me Clyde’s leash and moves around me, keeping low as she turns the handle.

“Who’s there?” a woman’s voice calls out as the door swings open.  From my crouch, I can see a blonde woman in just a t shirt lounging on the booth-like couch area inside.

“Think that’s Brittany,” I whisper to my sister.

“Brittany Reynolds?” Lia inquires, standing up and moving into the room.  We hear a soft epithet and the girl suddenly bolts for the far side of the little room.  Lia moves to intercept her, while the goat and I handily block the only other escape route.

“Whoa, whoa!” I say to her.  “Let’s everyone take a deep breath.  We’re here to help.”

“Like hell you are.  I don’t want your help,” the girl spits.

“Well, that’s nice.  Are you Brittany Reynolds?”

Silence.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”  I say, keeping my tone conversational.  I notice her slightly rounded stomach.  My worst fears are confirmed.  “And baby Reynolds, junior, I take it?”  Her hand protectively comes up to her stomach.

“You have no freakin’
clue
,” she snarls.

“Oh, I don’t, do I?  Maybe y’all should fill me in,” I reply, closing the door behind my charge.  “Where’s your baby daddy?  We’ll get it all sorted out.”

Brittany screams.

“Dammit!” Lia yells, rushing forward to silence her.

I look nervously at the wall that must contain the secret door.  For a long minute, I expect the incubus to burst through, while Lia gently tries to keep the spawn-bearing girl quiet.

“What’s going on in there?” a shout comes through the door at my back.

“Shit.  Lia.  We gotta skidaddle.”

“Move,” my sister says, pushing Brittany towards the other wall.

“Help!”  Brittany yells before Lia silences her again.  The door knob starts to turn.  I grab the small bistro table awkwardly with one hand and jam it under the doorknob, hopefully slowing down anyone who might try to follow us.

“Let’s go find him, then.  See?  We don’t want to hurt anyone,” Lia lies, encouraging the girl to open the secret hatch.  Brittany hesitates.

“We could always make this room a little scarier
now
,” I threaten, pulling out the revolver I’ve taken with me today.  While I don’t think pointing a piece at a pregnant girl will go on my Wall of Fame, it’s effective.  She looks nervously at the barrel of my gun and turns resolutely to a poster hung on the wall and pushes it, revealing a hidden doorway that becomes a pitch black tunnel.

“So far so good,” I say in low tones.  “Now, tell the guy at the door everything’s fine.”

Brittany starts crying, so I wave my gun a little.

“False alarm, Joe,” she says between silent sobs.  “Must have had a bad dream.”

“Okay, Britt, be safe,” Joe says as he walks away.

“Good.  Easy, now.  Let’s not spook anyone,” I warn quietly as I gesture to her to proceed towards the hidden door.

Lia leads, with Brittany between us.  We switch on our very chic head lamps, and stop midway between the strip club and what must be the basement of the house next door.

“We’re just gonna hang here a sec,” I say as I close the door to the club side of the tunnel, maneuvering around Clyde.

“I knew it!  You’re here to kill us!  I won’t let you hurt him!”  Brittany launches herself at Lia, wrestling for her gun.  Lia is having a hard time keeping the barrel from pointing at anyone.  I rush forward to trap the girl’s right arm, allowing Lia time to grab the other.  I trade Lia the hand I’ve secured and leave it to the uninjured person to do the grappling.

“Whoa, let’s calm the fuck down,” Lia says as she helps the girl stand back up.  “No.  We don’t want to kill you.  Really, we’re not here to kill anyone.”

“Like hell!  He told me all about you.  Said you were
afraid
of anything different and wouldn’t hesitate to put us down like animals.”

“Well, clearly your info is wrong—haven’t put anyone down yet,” I say soothingly.

“You have freakin’
guns
!  How thick do you think I am?”

I decide not to answer that.  “No guns, see?  Putting them away now.”

I re-holster my weapon and put my hands up in a display of my peaceful intentions.

“See?  Isn’t that a little nicer?”

“I don’t understand, then.  Why are you doing this?” Brittany cries.

“You carrying its baby?” I ask.

“It’s not a baby,” she says reflexively.

“Fine, you carrying its cambion?”

That seems to surprise her.  “You know what he is?”

“No,” I say sarcastically.  “We’re carrying a goat around with us on a quest to find some random dude.  Yes, we know you’ve run off with an incubus.”

“You don’t need to say it like that,” she snaps.  “He’s been wonderful.  He makes me happy after I’ve been miserable for so long.”

“Brittany, he kidnapped seven people.  He
killed
Cody.”

“But he didn’t know any better!  Where he’s from, there is no death.  Food, water, all that are treats, not the necessities they are here.  Once I told him, he changed.”  In the harsh light of our head lamps, Brittany looks like she herself could be of another world.  She is strikingly pretty.  Her blonde hair slowly cascades down to frame her face, and her hands absently stroke her stomach in a picture of maternal perfection.  Her dimpled face is lost in tender thoughts.