Chapter 1
“Is he…is he drunk or something?” I squinted at the man in eight-thousand-dollar clothes whose hands were shaking as he tried to snap a magazine into his pistol.
“Fuck if I know.” Telaney leaned forward to better eye the man. “He’s got to be drunk or high. I expected him to send a hit man, or a hit squad, not show up to a fight all by his lonesome decked out in a bespoke suit.”
“Maybe that’s his fighting suit.” I snorted.
“It’s gonna be his burial suit,” Telaney added.
Two months ago, Telaney had been late to a scavenge at a yoga studio where a man we’d called Big Studio Dude had killed his wife for screwing around on him with an equally Big Dude with the Palisades Militia. The militia had retaliated by bombing BSD’s limo. The bomb killed the driver as well as BSD’s friends who had borrowed the limo; the blast had turned the vehicle into twisted bits of blackened metal.
Telaney’s intel was that BSD was going to make a move on the militia—step three in this escalating mini-war.
I’d assumed Big Studio Dude would hire someone to do this job, but as I watched the fool swagger up to the chain-link fence of the Palisades Militia compound like he had steel balls, I thought differently.
“Is he gonna climb that fence?”
Telaney’s question was rhetorical, but with this guy, who knew? I wouldn’t be surprised if he rang the fucking bell and asked politely to be let in. What I didn’t expect was him ripping the enormous iron gate off the hinges and tossing it aside into the decorative bushes.
“Holy fuck,” Telaney muttered.
I nodded in agreement with Telaney. Normal humans couldn’t do that. “He’s heading up the walk. We better move in closer.”
“Not too close,” Telaney warned as we carefully made our way toward the gaping opening where a metal gate had once been. “Do you think he’s a shifter or something?”
I shrugged. These days, who knew what anyone was. The man didn’t look or act like the descriptions I’d been given of elves. I was ruling out mage, since I doubted Big Studio Guy would have the time or patience for that level of craft. Were there super-strength amulets? He clearly could afford one, judging from that suit, but this guy had a suicidal confidence that I wouldn’t think a purchased magical device could give.
“Shifter, or maybe demon,” I suggested.
“Demon?” Telaney turned wide eyes on me, then peeked around the rhododendron toward the retreating figure. “Shouldn’t he have horns or a tail or lizard-skin or something then?”
“Sometimes they just look human,” I told her.
Bishop had told me some demons were better at camouflaging themselves than others. Although if BSG was a demon, why hadn’t he taken care of his Palisades Militia problem before now? Maybe the guy had sold his soul to a demon who’d taken up residence in the last few weeks, and this pending bloodbath was part of the deal. But the one-percent rarely made stupid deals like that. If one of them was going to sell their soul, it wouldn’t be to get revenge against a group that blew up their limo. No, they’d just hire people to take care of that minor inconvenience, not go all Rambo themselves.
Still, if he was a demon, or anything not-human, we’d soon know. He’d either go furry or sprout horns.
Or get shot full of holes and die on the pavement.
“Just be careful,” I warned, not wanting anything to happen to the woman who was quickly becoming one of my best friends.
We snuck through where the gate had been, darting behind trees and statuary as we followed the man up the drive. No one usually messed with Vultures like us. We weren’t there to fight, just to sort through the bodies after it was all over. We scavenged. We didn’t get involved. It was relatively safe. Occasionally someone would take a pot shot at one of us just out of general dislike, and there was always the danger of a stray bullet, but we tried to keep out of the way of projectiles.
Midway up the drive, a man approached. He shouted for BSG to “drop it” and “keep his hands where he could see them.”
Telaney and I halted our advance, dropping low because shit was about to get real.
I expected BSG to start shooting, but instead he gently put the gun in his pocket and stood, hands raised. Then he grabbed a nearby statue and heaved it at the man. The concrete Athena flew through the air, knocking the man backward and to the ground before he could get off more than a few wild shots. He certainly wasn’t getting up with a four-hundred-pound statue on him, but BSG wasn’t taking any chances. He grabbed the statue’s base with one hand, casually walked over to the guard, and bashed his head in.
Telaney sucked in a breath.
Kirstin VanMarten had decided to screw around with some man with the militia, when she was married to this? Girl should have left the state to get her business on because this wasn’t the sort of husband a woman cuckolded and lived to tell the tale. I was surprised BSG had put a hit out on her instead of just caving her face in with one blow himself. This guy was scary. Note to self—don’t mess with Big Studio Guy. And definitely don’t marry him and cheat on him. Or blow up his limo.
The sound of a rifle shot had both Telaney and me flattening ourselves to the ground. Peeking up, I saw BSG spin around, drop to his knees, then get up and continue moving forward. Three more shots did little more than slow him a step or two.
“Fucker’s got some serious armor on under that pricey suit,” Telaney commented.
My friend Bags owned a similar vest, and it had saved his life at least once that I was aware of. But no matter what sort of flak jacket this guy was wearing, he was seriously badass to keep moving. Military-grade protection might keep a person alive, but getting shot still felt like someone had swung a baseball bat at your chest.
The shooter must have given up trying to snipe the intruder, because the gunfire stopped. Instead, a dozen guys poured out the front door, dropped to their knees, and opened fire. BSG shrugged off the hail of bullets and began launching statuary at the line of militia.
Second note to self: Never fill my front lawn with large concrete sculptures. Or small concrete sculptures.
Telaney and I kept low, sheltering behind one of the few statues BSG wasn’t using as a projectile. After taking down half of the militia, the remaining six fled back into the house. BSG did his head-smashing version of the double-tap in zombie video games, then walked up to the front door.
Palisades Militia must have had a dozen locks on that thing, because it took BSG ten seconds longer to rip it off the hinges than it had taken to do the same thing to the front gate. He entered the building.
Even from across the spacious lawn, we could hear the screams and gunfire.
When it stopped, I turned to my friend. “Want to go in and pick through what’s left?”
She let out a slow breath, then shook her head. “Let’s wait until we’re sure everyone’s dead, and we’re not going to be impaled by a stair-rail javelin or bludgeoned to death by a sofa.”
“Good plan.”
Telaney and I waited outside, standing but still remaining alert in case we needed to hit the ground again. I was glad we’d held off on scavenging when I saw the shadow of a figure by where the front door had once been. A long, high-pitched scream rent the air. Seconds later BSG walked outside, dragging a man behind him. The man’s limbs were twisted at strange angles, sliding along the ground as if he no longer had use of them. His screams were hoarse and gulping.
We stared as BSG lugged the man over to a red Ferrari, hauled him up onto the hood, then shoved the man’s head clear through the windshield. Blood sprayed, and the screams were abruptly silenced.
BSG wiped his hands on the dead man’s pant legs, then walked down the driveway.
I wasn’t sure if we should run for it or not. Not that we could outrun any statuary the guy might want to launch at us.
The man smoothed a hand over his hair, then winked at us. “Happy pickings, girls. Oh.” He pulled the pistol out of his pocket and tossed it on the ground. I jumped a little, because firearm safety is a pet peeve of mine. “Here. You gals can keep this. I ended up not needing it.”
He continued down the driveway, whistling a cheerful tune as he turned onto the street.
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