She followed up quickly on each lead. She’d been able to confirm that Heather had been taken into Five Bridges, specifically into Crescent Territory. She was being used as a prostitute, which was terrible all on its own. But Iris had known it was the best possible news because Heather hadn’t been given an
alter
serum, which meant she was alive and still human. Her captors, however, were keeping her strung out on blood flame and the drug would be hard on her baby.
Iris had kept nothing back from Evan. She’d been up front from the beginning, especially about his wife’s odds of survival as well as the child she carried.
At the two-month mark, however, when her investigation led her way-too-close to one of the drug-lords, Donaldson had told her to close the file.
Iris had begged to be allowed to continue. She’d been so hopeful of a positive outcome. But Donaldson had insisted; she wasn’t to spend another second on Heather’s case.
One of the hardest things she’d ever done was to pay Evan a final visit. She’d wept when she told him that her superior had shut the investigation down.
Evan had grown very calm and Iris knew he’d begun the process of acceptance, that he would probably never see his wife again.
A week later, Iris had received a report that included a picture of a very pregnant woman shot down in a drug raid. She knew at once the woman was Evan’s wife since she had a photo of her. Besides, every witch instinct she had told Iris who the woman was. For whatever reason, Heather’s captors had decided to use her to run drugs.
Evan had confirmed the woman’s identity. He’d taken Heather back to Phoenix, buried his wife and their unborn son, and she’d never seen him again.
But the way Evan had been so desperate to recover Heather during those early days and weeks now burned as Iris’s prime motivation. Somehow, she would be part of the process, no matter how long it took, to create a decent society within Five Bridges.
Her own unfortunate path to becoming an
alter
witch might not have been something she’d asked for. But she’d come to accept her fate and intended to make the most of it.
Even if it meant heading into the worst part of Crescent, into a place known as home to several death squads.
~ ~ ~
A few minutes later, Connor descended in stages down to the street, though he remained levitating. The noise was almost deafening from the constant honking of cars, to women shouting and music exploding from one establishment to the next.
Several vampires were in the air, levitating in a drunk way. One of them slammed into the running lights of a one-hour hotel, sending sparks flashing as he tumbled to the sidewalk. Hard.
“Oh, dear God,” Iris murmured.
Connor followed the line of Iris’s sight and saw why she sounded distressed. The vampire’s skull had cracked open and blood poured onto the cement.
He turned her away from the carnage, levitated above the traffic and flew across to the entrance of the House of Big Sex. A red sign flashed steadily, ‘Big-Women-All-the-Time’.
Connor knew better than to try to enter the establishment once he touched down on concrete. He slowly moved Iris off his boot, but kept his arm around her waist, holding her tight.
He hadn’t discussed strategy with her, which meant on some level he trusted her instincts to go with the flow. He knew she’d been a TPS officer for over nine years and he relied on her experience to help see this encounter with Gary through.
Big Nuts had some of the meanest shifter bouncers and bodyguards of anyone on the Row. Two of them approached him now, mouths in tight, grim lines, eyes small and feral, noses sniffing the air. Very shifter.
He addressed the taller one, meeting his gaze dead on. “Alejandro. We need to see your boss.” He knew by long habit how to read the hierarchy among the fur-beasts and Alejandro, with the sides of his head shaved clean and heavy tattoos running from his scalp down the sides of his neck, was an alpha.
He ran Gary’s entire security force.
Alejandro met his gaze, nostrils flaring as he swept his dark, beady eyes to Iris. “No fucking witches allowed. Bosses orders.”
“He’ll want to see this one. She knew the bridge would blow and we’re both alive because of it.”
Connor had a decent working relationship with Big Nuts, primarily because Gary only accepted willing workers and never killed them off. Of course, by the time each came to him, they were strung out on flame, which made it easy to control the women who worked for him.
Alejandro shifted his gaze several times between the two of them. He didn’t look convinced and gestured for his partner to form a barrier between Connor and the door. He disappeared inside for a moment.
When he reappeared, he signaled for them to follow.
“Here we go,” he whispered to Iris.
To her credit, Iris moved right with him, not hesitating once, though he did notice she kept her palm on the butt of her Sig.
Once inside, he slowed his pace, needing a moment to adjust. The women in Big Nuts’s stable were all large women, some even super-sized with narrow strips of silk tucked between erotic rolls. Several were actively engaged in a variety of sex acts with various patrons. The club hummed, moaned, and screamed with activity.
“Do you see that?” Iris whispered. She was doing a good job of keeping pace with him since Alejandro was moving fast across the expansive club, heading to the hallway beyond.
“You mean the women?” Was she referring to the obvious? Or was it something else?
“Several of them are pregnant.”
He took a couple of seconds to do a deeper search of the room and she was right. Not only were there large women serving the clientele but several average-sized women who were with child.
He’d only been inside Gary’s club a few times, but he’d never noticed pregnant women before. Of course, he hadn’t been looking, either. Connor’s work was centered on drug-running, not sex-for-sale enterprises. Any business he’d had with Big Nuts would have involved seeking information about a runner.
~ ~ ~
Iris tried to ignore the smells assaulting her from within the oh-so-fine establishment. She smelled sex and a variety of body odors, a cigar stench and somewhere a layering of beer and vomit.
Having reached the opposite side of the room and passed down a narrow hall, Alejandro stood outside a doorway. Two plump, naked beauties held back a pair of blue velvet curtains. Iris half-expected Big Nuts to be reclining on pillows with several women servicing him.
Instead, he sat behind a desk, smoking a cigar, his eyes narrowed as if in some discomfort. Four bodyguards, in addition to Alejandro, were stationed around the room.
She forced herself to take deep breaths, not because she was frightened, but because the wood-paneling of the room was trying to talk to her, screaming at her.
Violence was part of night-life in the Row. So of course the organic elements of the room would try to gain her attention, to warn her away. She even thought about attempting a calming spell. But she knew the moment she lit up her witch skills, one of the vampires present would probably cut her throat.
Big Nuts looked her up and down. He was bald, had a wide nose, and wore a black tank like Connor that showcased his shoulder tattoos, one of them a screaming skull. “You’re pretty for a witch. Too skinny, though.” As an
alter
species, he could tell she was a witch just as she knew he was a vampire.
He rose from his chair, then rounded the desk to plant his ass on the corner, legs wide. He wore snug, leopard print pants.
Okay, she couldn’t help herself. Her gaze dropped to the bulge across his groin and there they were, about the size of softballs, which was probably the most accurate description possible in every respect. There was nothing sexy in the display, however. Rather, she felt like she was standing next to a cage at the zoo, looking at an animal she’d never seen before.
Gary’s nickname suited him extremely well.
When she could finally lift her gaze to his face, he wore a satisfied smile and took a drag on his fat cigar. It was as though God had given him a single outstanding asset and he worked it like a one-ring circus.
“So you knew the bridge would blow. That a witch thing?”
“
My
witch thing. Yes.”
“Yeah, you witches have a complete panorama of gifts. I lose track. And I never use one of your kind in my club, in case you’re offering.”
“I’m not.”
Big Nuts’s gaze slid to Connor. “What d’you want, anyway, Officer?”
Connor’s deep voice rolled through the room. “Heard a rumor you sent a runner my way tonight. A woman with a fake jacket. I need to know why.”
Iris felt the tenor of the room change, like a first strike of lightning in a thunder storm. It was a warning from a spiritual plane and she knew she couldn’t ignore it.
She drew her gun, whirled, then settled her back against Connor’s arm. She was essentially at a right-angle to him. He didn’t move, yet she could feel his body had drawn up into a single tense line, ready for action as well.
Big Nuts’s bodyguard force came to attention during the same split-second of movement. Blades came out and a couple of hand guns.
“Back-off,” Iris cried out, “or I’ll start shooting because I don’t give a damn who dies here tonight. Not me, not Connor, not any of you.”
There was a joint intake of breath. A few of the bodyguards muttered a string of expletives. A witch making threats in a Crescent Territory establishment was something to be feared.
Gary waved a hand. “Put your weapons away.”
Big Nuts’s force obeyed immediately, though all eyes were on her.
“What are you doing?” Connor asked, nudging her gently with his arm from behind.
“Protecting your ass.”
For some reason, this made Connor chuckle. “Thanks, but I got this.”
“You sure? Because I felt a premonition glide through the room. I think maybe you need to ask Big Nuts here who paid him to set you up?” Iris didn’t shift position. The warning still registered with her like an itch on her skin. She kept her gaze moving from the shifters she could see back to the velvet curtains and the two women ready to reopen them on command. Each stood with eyes wide and panicked.
Connor’s voice once more rolled through the space. “So, Gary, why did you set me up?”
“It was all in fun. I sent Tammy out there myself just to give you a hard time. No one else had a hand in it. This is on me.”
Iris didn’t hesitate to share her thoughts. “He’s lying.”
~ ~ ~
Connor loved that Iris was as deeply engaged in the process as he was and he could feel her witchness as she stayed connected to his arm. She’d also brought the real issue to the forefront, exactly where it needed to be.
He began again, holding Gary’s gaze tight. “Now, why do you want to lie to me? Haven’t I always been fair with you? When was the last time I raided your establishment?”
“Never.”
“Exactly. So, why the runner?”
Big Nuts released a heavy sigh. “All right. Someone wanted you to kill her. He was sure you would. Said you had a habit of putting innocent women in the grave.”
Clearly, whoever was after him knew the worst parts of his history.
“And how did you know Tammy? She was too thin to be one of your big women.”
“She came to me pregnant and knew I hired a few women who could sport the belly. She did good for a while but she pounded down blood flame like you wouldn’t believe and I had to let her go. When I was approached with a boatload of cash, I knew Tammy would do whatever I asked. I was right.”
Connor grew uneasy, though he wasn’t sure why. Something in the room didn’t feel right to him either and not because Iris was feeling it. But he couldn’t put his finger on the problem.
Then it hit him. There was a theme going on here. The woman he’d killed all those years ago had been pregnant. Tammy had been as well. And Big Nuts used pregnant women as part of his sex club. But none of this would get him the answers he needed.
Yet, as he recalled the woman he’d killed a decade past, guilt drove a spike through his heart all over again. The moment he’d realized the pistol had been strapped to her wrist, he knew he’d been set up, maneuvered to kill the woman. But he’d never known why, never gotten to the bottom of it. Even back then he couldn’t find anyone willing to talk.
The event had changed him, made him cautious, more careful than he’d ever been before.
Now here he was, facing a low-level sex club owner who had sent Tammy out to repeat history. “I need to know who set me up. That’s all. Then I’m out of here.”
He felt Iris tense up once more. “We should leave,” she said quietly.
He took in the field once more. Five shifter bodyguards and Big Nuts. Two women by the blue velvet drapes. Iris’s gun and her witch powers, his own weapon still in its holster. His sword at the ready.
He made his move and brought his gun into his hand. He was fast and even Big Nuts’s eyes widened.
Big Nuts held up both hands. “Let’s calm down.”
“Let’s not. Iris, start making your way to the door. Gary, you should let us go.”
“See, it’s this way. I can’t. I was told to hold you and these were orders I couldn’t refuse.”
“Whose orders?”
“Can’t tell you that either, except to say it wasn’t one of the big three.” He lifted both arms in the air and with his index and middle fingers pressed together, waved to his troops. It was a signal of some kind.
Connor fired up into the air and the women at the velvet curtains screamed and ran out of the room. The bodyguards, however, froze in mid-motion like playing statue, but he wasn’t sure why. Gary with them.
Then he felt Iris’s witch energy all around him, though how she was doing it he had no idea. She seemed to be employing some form of enthrallment, a spell maybe. It was on a massive scale, something most witches couldn’t do. So who was Iris anyway?
Connor kept shifting his gaze from Big Nuts, to his men, and back.
“Iris?” He didn’t dare take his eyes off the men in front of him, though he feared more guards may have already arrived at the entrance. If they had, he and Iris were screwed.