Rebellion Reborn, page 15
The parasite finally came to his senses about twenty feet into the crowd and began to thrash, causing the people supporting him to drop him. Pushing my way toward him, I noticed several more of the very large humanoid bouncers working their way toward us. I made it to the leech before the bouncers could make it to us. Completely out of control, the kid tried to rush me. Even in the tight confines, I easily avoided the punk’s first haphazard swing then hit him with a right to his torso. Hammering my left forearm and elbow into the side of his head dropped him again.
I knelt over him, grabbed his chin in one hand, and began searching his neck for his coven’s mark. Every coven marked its members, and unaffiliated vampires wouldn’t dare tread on the territories of known covens. I couldn’t find the mark that should have been under his ear, though.
I started to get up, dragging the dazed vampire with me by his jaw, when a pair of massive hands gripped me like vises and abruptly lifted me to my toes. Another figure grabbed the punk and pulled him out of my hands. As I tried to twist around, something caught my eye. The vaguest hint of a figure, or rather the odd brownish energy that enveloped it, hung in the shadows on the landing at the top of the stairs leading to the office space above the stage. The big hands that held me shoved me hard in that direction. The aura around the figure was intense and radiated around it rather than emanating from it. While the aura was similar, I could tell the creature was not a vampire.
So much for casual observations tonight.
The crowd parted in front of us as we headed toward the stairs. The giant pushing the punk vampire was a few steps in front of me. He had a strange empty holster on his left hip next to a canister of pepper spray and a telescoping stun baton in another holster on his right hip. At one point in our march, he lowered his left hand back to his side for a moment, gripping a Taser, a two-shot X2. I had to assume the giant behind me was similarly armed. Apparently, fetishists could get violent and unruly. Who knew?
My escort shoved me at one point, and I shrugged it off and began to turn to glare at him in defiance when the Taser’s warning arc crackled behind me, followed by the unique smell of charged air.
“Keep moving,” he said in a gruff voice over the din, “or you’ll find out what fifty thousand volts feels like.” I didn’t have my cuirass on to insulate me from the shock, so I just kept moving.
Oddly, the crowd stared at us as if we were somehow stranger than they were. We made it to the base of the stairs, where the silhouetted figure reeking of power and energy stood. A long, skinny arm reached from the shadows and, with a bony hand, pointed at the vampire then hooked a thumb up to the office. Then he waved his skeletal hand dismissively toward the door, and a big paw closed on my shoulder, pulling me back toward the entrance. The other bouncer shoved the vampire up the stairs as I was thrown out into the street past a crowd of people waiting to enter.
I tried to act indignant, which wasn’t very hard since I was. I quickly improvised being drunk and faked tripping over a crack in the sidewalk, landing sprawled out on the street. I picked myself up, confident that my ruse was convincing, then stumbled to the back of the building, where I’d left my gear. It was barely one in the morning, and I had no idea when the club would shut down.
I grabbed my duffle out of the dumpster then geared up, feeling normal again for the first time in days. I checked my sidearms out of habit then crouched next to the dumpster to wait. Less than an hour later, one of the giant bouncers came around the corner, heading right for me.
“Hey,” he shouted, waving a hand at me as if I were some kind of animal in the trash pile. “Get out of here.”
I stood to face him, checking my wrists to make sure the leather strips I wore over my hands were secure. “Make me, tough guy.”
He pulled his stun baton from his belt and flicked it open as he stomped closer. “Damn homeless. I’m gonna enjoy this.” He laughed, holding the baton low along his right side.
I had a brief conversation with myself, weighing the pros and cons of shooting him, cleaving him, or just beating him to a pulp. Reason won out: I could use him alive. Plus, gunfire would cause too much of a stir, cleaving was too messy, and having a meaningful conversation is tough when one of the participants is catatonic.
The giant took the last few steps in an ungainly jog, raising the baton over his head. If I’d been a normal human, the intended blow would have put me in a coma at the very least. I shot forward and met him in a tackle meant to stop, not drop him. I hit him in his rib cage with my right shoulder, cracking bones and halting his momentum instantly, then I rotated my body to bring my left elbow up to connect with his face with all my strength. I caught him squarely across the jaw, cheek, and nose. More bones broke.
The giant staggered back, dropped the baton, and reached for the ground with his left arm to steady himself as his legs gave out. I kicked his arm out from under him, and he fell forward in a heap, moaning. Standing over him, I rotated my sore right arm at the shoulder, lamenting the stiffness that persisted weeks after my last injury to it. The giant wasn’t as strong or as fast as I’d expected, not much more than a human.
I picked up the baton he’d dropped and examined it as I returned to the giant’s prone form. I crouched beside him, sitting on my heels.
“Wow, that was a spectacularly dumb move, junior.” I grabbed the giant by his leather chest harness and pulled him to a sitting position. Whatever race he belonged to, he was as heavy as a damned elephant. “Now, when you’re ready, you’re going to tell me everything I want to know, right?” I waved the baton in front of him. His eyes began to focus again, following the moving tip of the baton, and he nodded.
“Ca—” He gurgled through the thick blood and broken teeth and bones, “Cam-ras.” He pointed up along the roofline at the security cameras. He tried to smile, but it didn’t work with his split lips. I did hear a few hoarse laughs in between coughs and moans, though.
Shaking my head at the sudden realization of my stupidity, I jumped up to the roofline, pulling myself up and over. Covering the camera lens with my hand, I redirected the cameras to provide a small blind spot below before jumping back down.
“That’s better,” I said, sitting down next to the injured bouncer. “And thanks for the warning, though I gotta admit it was dumb on my part not to think of it first. I just don’t know where my head’s been, ya know? Oh well...”
I held the baton so that I could zap him if I had to but also move it quickly to attack anybody who came to his defense. I figured someone would come out to help him, and if I played injured, as well, then they might come right to me. “Now you just relax. Someone will be along shortly to help you.”
We didn’t have to wait more than three minutes before another figure came around the corner, Taser in hand. In fact, I could see the red aiming dot on my chest. They were going to have to get a lot closer to use it, though, since the wires only reached fifteen feet.
“Hey...” said a husky female voice. “You okay? Az... you all right? Az...”
Az didn’t answer. In fact, he didn’t even move, which was odd because I was pretty sure he was wheezing. The female bouncer crept closer, keeping the dot on my chest. Once she was close enough, she kicked my foot, but I remained still. It was the catsuit-clad giantess who had collected the fee at the door. Once she got a better view of Az, she immediately changed her focus to helping him, forgetting me completely.
“Holy crap, Az! What happened?” She knelt next to him.
He tried to mumble something, then I decided it was my move.
“He underestimated me.” I rammed the stun baton into her ribcage. I had to zap her several times and run the battery down, but she finally fell.
It took me a few seconds to get her into position next to Az, and I couldn’t get over how deceptively heavy the beings were. They weighed far more than a serious weightlifter of similar stature. It was like their bones were made of lead or something.
“What the hell are you guys?” I asked offhandedly once I was done. “Actually, let’s put a pin in that one for right now. I have more important questions for you. For starters, is your boss up in that office or downstairs somewhere?”
I tossed the used-up baton into the dumpster and grabbed the giantess’s stun gun. Aiming it back and forth between them, I watched their eyes follow it rather than me. Az grumbled something unintelligible as his face and jaw swelled. The female bouncer still hadn’t fully recovered, either.
“Oh, right, sorry. I forgot it might be hard to talk. Let’s try this... blink once for upstairs and twice for down. How’s that? And if you both don’t agree, then you both get zapped again. Sound fair? Good. Now, upstairs or down?” I arced the Taser just for added effect.
They both blinked hard one time.
“Excellent,” I replied. “Now, how many of you are there? Blink once for each of you.”
They both began blinking, and I couldn’t keep up with them at the same time.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. One at a time. Same rules apply, though. You first.” I pointed at Az.
They each blinked ten times.
“You’re doing just fine. Now, are all ten of you here right now? Blink once for yes and twice for no.”
They both blinked twice.
“Okay, how many are here now? You first,” I said, again pointing at Az.
They both blinked six times.
“Six including you two?” I asked.
One blink from both.
“Anyone else in there tougher than you two?”
Neither blinked intentionally, and their eyes darted in every direction except mine.
“C’mon now. I don’t want to zap you, but I will...” I wagged the Taser back and forth in front of them. “You should be able to talk by now, Catsuit, so spill.”
Still, no response. Something inside the building scared them enough to risk the pain of stunning. The boss clearly wasn’t the issue.
“Just one someone else?” I asked, arcing the Taser inches in front of their faces.
Their eyes locked on the bright-blue spark as it moved, but they still did not blink intentionally.
“Fine.” I aimed the targeting dot at Catsuit’s nose from about two feet away.
Her eyes crossed, and she cringed but still wouldn’t blink. When I took my finger off the trigger, she sighed and fell backward. Even Az rolled his eyes in relief and exhaled heavily through his mouth.
“Wow, you guys are really scared of whoever it is inside there. Huh,” I said, standing up and heading over to my duffle. “So, here’s what’s going to happen: we are going to sit here and wait until everyone leaves, and then I am going back in to talk with your boss and whoever it is you two are so afraid of. Sound like a plan?”
No response.
“Good,” I said, pulling a skein of rope out of my bag.
Chapter 21
No one else came to follow up over the next few hours. Once the vibration of thumping music stopped, I peeked around the corner of the building, standing directly under one of the security cameras to avoid its view. I left the two bouncers trussed up. Working in a place like this, they probably enjoy it anyway.
The line of people at the door and the door attendant were gone. I watched for a good ten minutes without seeing anyone come or go—not even a car passed on the street—before I headed for the entrance. Halfway down the sidewalk, I pulled both my swords and prepared myself for a fight.
Despite my current combative attitude, I knew it was reasonable to check the door to see if it was open before going all ballistic on it. It was locked, but the prudent thing was to enter as quietly as possible, so I resisted the urge to kick it in and shoved my sword into the space between the door and its frame. After cutting through the locking bolts, I entered without setting off any kind of alarms that I could see or hear and used my sword to part the first curtain before peering through the second.
The inside of the warehouse was completely lit up from corner to corner, and two giants were mopping the floor. One was scrubbing very hard in the far corner near the stage area, while the other sloppily worked a mop near the bar. There was no sign of movement other than the sloshy mopping activity.
I walked through the curtain, swords in hand, and quietly started up the stairs to the office space. I made it about halfway up the steps before the two oversized janitors noticed me. Ignoring their shouting, I continued upward. Putting my shoulder and all my momentum into the metal door at the top, I hit it with sufficient force to rip it from its hinges and send it toppling into the room.
The office was small—less than a hundred square feet—with a plush white couch along the back wall and two deep white armchairs separated by a small bar across from it. In the far wall was a door. The windows behind the bar were incredibly thick one-way glass, probably made from bullet-resistant material.
At the foot of the couch, a vaguely humanoid shape lay wrapped up like a burrito in heavy plastic sheeting. The pale-pink stain oozing across the length of it matched the mess sprayed along the back wall and ceiling. There was no metallic scent of human blood, though.
My first guess was the remains of the unaffiliated Moroi interloper. Before I could make a move to check the contents of the burrito, the door on the other side of the room opened. What stepped through caught me off guard. Gangly was the first word that came to mind. The figure was just slightly taller than me but half the width. Its spindly arms and legs were grotesquely long while its torso was short. Conversely, the creature’s head was large and round like a basketball, with two huge yellow eyes. Teeth stuck out at all angles from the gash-like mouth that split the head nearly in half. The figure was cloaked in an intense brown energy—the same energy I had seen earlier at the top of the stairs.
“An incubus...” I said aloud, but mostly to myself, wincing at the sight of the being’s true form. “Makes perfect sense for a place like this.”
Before it could respond, heavy pounding steps rang up the metal stairs behind me.
“Don’t move!” a voice shouted from behind me.
The frightfully freakish figure in front of me didn’t move or say anything. I began shifting slightly so I could get an eye on the attackers behind me while still keeping an eye on the incubus, but one of the two giants on the landing fired his Taser at me, hitting me just behind my left arm. The barbs only managed to snag the ballistic nylon of my vest and didn’t penetrate, so my cuirass insulated me from the charge. I swatted the leads away with my left sword and faced the pair of giants.
“Let’s not do that again,” I said.
The giant shot me with his second charge, hitting me fully in the chest. I felt a tingle before I swiped the leads with my right sword. I made a sudden lunge without raising either sword, but it startled the first giant enough that he clumsily stepped backward into the one behind him, sending that one over the railing at the top of the steps. The giant hit the cement floor below with a meaty thwap.
I cringed, but it distracted the remaining giant long enough for me to move forward, sword raised. My sudden move drew his attention. The giant glanced rapidly back and forth from his fallen comrade to me. Screaming, he swatted at the blade with one hand then threw the spent Taser at me. Just as quickly, I batted the plastic yellow gun aside, shattering it, and brought my other sword up to meet the arm that had thrown the Taser, severing it cleanly just below the elbow. The bouncer howled, and I planted a heel in his broad chest, sending him tumbling backward down the stairs. The wailing stopped before the body reached the floor.
I returned to the office behind me, but by the time I spotted the incubus scrambling across the room’s ceiling like some sort of insect on crack, it managed to flip down and kick me square in the chest with both of its spindly legs. The force sent me reeling backward into the doorframe. I narrowly missed smacking my head into the metal frame, but knocking it on the adjacent paneling was only slightly better. I managed to keep my footing, though I was dazed and momentarily without any idea where the incubus was. The next thing I knew, I was flying across the room in the other direction. I hit the far wall and fell to the floor in a heap of broken glass and wood. To make matters worse, I had no idea where my swords were, either.
I was picking myself up off the floor, trying to regain my bearings, when a tremendous blow hit my chest. It probably would have killed me if not for my cuirass. Instead, the attack knocked me back against the wall, and I instinctively threw my arms over my head. Luckily. I managed to block another blow aimed at the side of my head with my left arm and shoulder and reflexively struck out with my right in an arcing roundhouse punch that managed to connect solidly with something fleshy but firm.
The blow bought me a few seconds. I shook my head, regaining my wits but still not fully sure of my situation. The incubus had backed off and was favoring its left side. I pulled the Sig Sauer P226 Navy from the holster on my vest and aimed at the creature, which was hunkered low to the ground a few yards in front of me. An odd sensation began invading my mind, and I immediately blocked it out, shaking my head.
“That crap won’t work on me, demon,” I said in disgust. “No more than this gun will kill you.”
The incubus was crawling across the floor, still favoring its left side, as it climbed over the rolled-up vampire, over the couch, then began to move up the back wall.
“We can be civilized about this, Guardian,” the creature managed to say cleanly despite its tangled dentition. “I let you pass earlier when I could have had you killed like this wretch.” It nodded briefly at the rolled-up corpse.
