Netherworld II: Blood Potion No. 9 Page 4

  I reluctantly looked away to examine his leader, the much less impressive C.K. Talk about doing a complete one-eighty on the sexy meter.

  C.K. was a pale, pinkish-skinned redhead, his hair the kind of washed-out orangey ginger that looks good on no one. Especially someone with the pastel skin tone he possessed. His muddy brown eyes squinted, giving me the impression C.K. needed glasses like most werehogs, but was too vain to wear them. Tusks erupting from his

  upper jaw bracketed his lower lip, the larger lower tusks reaching almost to the round snout of his nose. He looked more pig than man in the face. I felt a stab of sympathy that fate had treated him so ill as to give him the Zoo Flu with such devastatingly ugly results.

  He’d contracted Short Man’s Disease as well, that crazed obsession of some smaller statured guys to make up for being less than five and a half feet tall by working out until they resembled lumpy beach balls. C.K. had muscle to spare, but it wasn’t nearly as well proportioned as his werewolf companion’s. He was beefed up until he looked as wide in the shoulders and chest as he was tall. He hadn’t paid as much attention to working his waistline, which showed a love for – I’m sorry, but I have to say it – pigging out.

  Most people who have never seen a feral hog think of their wereanimal counterparts as the most nonthreatening of the shifters. But feral hogs are brutal creatures, a full grown one capable of taking out a big dog and turning it into dinner. Yep, hogs are omnivorous and will eat meat. Children have been maimed by wild pigs. There’s nothing cute or ‘Babe’ about them. And a werehog, shifted into its animal form, is an incredibly fast and vicious opponent, especially with the human intelligence added in. It was no surprise to me that a werehog led this unsavory crew.

  I took a quick glance at the two other shifters at the table; a weregator with grayish-green scaly skin, and another werehog who’d hadn’t been hit as hard in the face with the ugly pig-stick. Plus, kneeling by C.K.’s chair was a very human woman. She wore a black bustier, Daisy Duke denim shorts, and a denim jacket with ‘Property of the Beasts’ stitched on the back. Despite appearing well in her thirties, her acne-scarred face was made up in teenager fashion with electric blue eyeshadow and neon pink lipstick. She gazed up with adoration at C.K. Ew. At least she had pretty hair, long and thick and golden blond.

  I drifted closer to hear the conversation, a very serious one to judge from the expressions on the gathered shifter’s faces.

  C.K. spoke to the wolf, his thick tone garbled only slightly by the thick, yellowed tusks. “The fact remains, you let that bastard cheat me out of my fee. I’m not happy about that, Bane.”

  Bane. As in wolfbane, I assumed. The Beasts really weren’t long on originality when it came to their nicknames.

  Bane’s voice was a soft animal rumble, not unpleasant at all. “I accept full responsibility. I assure you, I won’t screw up again.”

  C.K. slammed a fist on the tabletop. His hand opened, showing his fingers had fused into a Vulcan ‘live long and prosper’ sign. Cloven hands are common among the werehogs. “Damn it. I like you, man. If I let this shit go though, it makes me look bad. That cheating bastard knows to have my money ready.”

  Bane nodded, his wolfish face somber. “I understand. I should have tore up his store and left a few marks on him for good measure. Whatever punishment you deem fit, I’ll take it. You have my complete loyalty, no matter what.”

  I sighed. What a shame that such a fine looking manimal was such a piece of garbage. Good looks don’t make a good man, though.

  C.K. shook his head, huffing through his snout. “I need to think on it, man. Go take care of business, and I’ll let you know my decision later.”

  Bane rose. “You got it, boss.” He left the table and walked out of the door.

  I wondered if I should stick to C.K., who seemed content to hang out with his gang, or follow Bane, who was no doubt on his way to collect the debt owed, whether it be cash or flesh. There was definite criminal potential with the werewolf.

  The weregator sitting at C.K.’s table spoke up. “What you gonna do about him? That was a pretty serious fuck up.”

  C.K. scowled, his red-rimmed eyes lost in a fierce squint. “It’s none of your fucking business and all of mine.” He stood and smacked the back of the silent blonde’s head as she continued kneeling on the floor. “Come on, Bottle. You can suck me off and clear my brain for me.”

  Bottle? I wondered where the woman had gotten such a strange nickname. She was on her feet in an instant, eager as a puppy, wiggling all over as if being noticed was thrill enough. “Sure, honey.”

  Yuck. I did not want to watch Pig Boy get his stuff mouthed by his ‘property’. As the pigmy (I know, I know, I just can’t seem to stop myself) led the taller by at least five inches blonde to the back hallway, I went the other direction. I hurried to catch up to Bane.

  I got outside to see Bane saddling up on a totally kick-butt chopper. I’d never ridden a motorcycle in my life. I guess it just never came up. But hearing Bane start that bike, listening to its meaty growl, I got a visceral surge of excitement. I was at his side in a twinkling.

  “You don’t mind if I hitch a ride, do you, Bane?” I soaked in a little of the power the chopper put out, making it stutter for an instant. Bane adjusted it with a growl, and I yanked my skirt up to my crotch to climb on behind him. Heck, no one could see me.

  I felt how the bike rumbled beneath me, making my nipples hard. I’m not kidding; the sensation was so sexual in nature I actually got aroused. And with a big, warm body in front of me, it seemed only right to wrap my arms around the werewolf’s waist.

  Bane jerked and looked around as if he felt me. I grinned, delighted to be acknowledged by the living. The shifter snorted at himself and shrugged it off. The next instant we took off and roared down the road.

  It was amazing. I drew enough from the motorcycle to be affected by the physical world so that wind blew my hair back and whipped against my face. Bane’s scent was rich with musk, filling my nostrils with a feral blend of animal and man that was brute masculinity. His iron abs beneath my arms and hands, soft with that dusting of fur, were a solid block of stability to anchor me.

  And to see Fulton Falls spin past us, without the cage of a car between us and the town, was exhilarating beyond belief. We moved down Blount Highway, zooming over the bridges that spanned the marsh, past the fine homes that lined the shores, and past the darkened stalls of the farmers market that offered local produce. Bane turned onto the busier Highway 341. He wove us in and out of cars; cars that hummed almost silently, cars with screeching mufflers, cars with stereo systems thumping heartbeats of bass. Street lights, house lights, traffic signals, and the illumination spilling from convenience stores were oases of luminosity flashing by.

  Then the huge cemetery where my remains lay slipped by, giving way to the waterfront. Highway 341 became Altamaha Drive at the point where downtown began.

  Downtown Fulton Falls has enjoyed a revitalization in recent years. New businesses have flocked to lease grand old buildings, many built right after the Great Fire. There are small squares between a few stores, outfitted with fountains and benches where buskers perform during lunchtime and on weekends. And the grand old Ritz Theater has been completely restored, hosting shows and musical acts just like in its heyday.

  Closer to the waterfront, where Fulton Falls’ port had existed before the fire, downtown remains a little seedier, still a victim of its decline in the eighties. This is where Bane drove us, coming to a stop in the parking lot of the strip club Exotica Erotica. The cessation of the chopper’s motor was a wallop of silence as deafening as an explosion.

  Lit in the hectic flash of red neon that spelled the club’s name, I dismounted the bike, completely exhilarated despite my litter-strewn surroundings. I patted Bane’s muscular shoulder. I enjoyed the feel of him so much that I kept my hand there until he rose to tower over me. Boy, he had nice shoulders.

  My fingertips drifted down that strong a
rm of his. “Thanks for the ride, babe. Nothing like something big and powerful between my legs to make the night right.”

  It didn’t matter he couldn’t hear my appreciation. Good manners should be implemented whenever appropriate.

  He stalked to the club’s front door, completely unaware of me. I bounced into the building behind my big bad wolf chauffeur.

  Music swelled as we stepped in, though not too loud, which was a pleasant surprise. I followed Bane through the strip club, having a good look around. I’d never been in one, so what I knew of them came from movies.

  There was a little stage where a girl dressed as a cheerleader was getting down to her pom poms (and I don’t mean the ones you shake in your hands). She was cute as a button, with a light smattering of freckles across her nose. I wonder how many of the gents noticed that part of her anatomy. A deejay booth sat to one side of the stage, where a man with slicked back hair looked bored as he waited to change the tune.

  Other than that and the prevalence of scantily clad ladies waiting and dancing at tables, it looked like any club. I was a bit disappointed, expecting a lot of neon lights and cages for the girls to dance around in. Men hooting wildly. Shows what I know. The

  men were reserved and quiet, their eyes on the girls but not really responding. As for the ambience, there wasn’t much of one. The illumination was dim overall, with a spotlight over the stage and gentler bulbs over the tables. As for the seating, there was just a bunch of tables that sat four, some booths along one wall, and a bar along the other. The only art on the walls were some framed posters of the Golden Age’s bastions of beauty: Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, Jean Harlowe, etc. It smelled of booze, cheap perfume, and old cigarette smoke from back when you could light up in a public place. It was really underwhelming, if you ask me.

  Bane came to a booth where a lone man sat and slid in across from him. The other guy had a comb-over that would make Donald Trump wince and wore a well-used business suit. His tie was slightly askew. His hand shook as he passed a fat envelope across the table to Bane.

  “Here you go,” he said, with an apologetic smile. His eyes were wide behind his thick glasses as they took in the big werewolf.

  The envelope disappeared like in a twinkling. Bane lifted one side of his upper lip in a not so very subtle snarl. “This delay put me in a difficult position with my employer.”

  The other man’s face shone with perspiration. “I’m real sorry about that, Bane. It won’t happen again, I swear.”

  “It had better not, because I’m not having my ability to do my job called in question again. This is your only warning.”

  Then Bane started to shift. His face elongated, and fur shot out of his skin like he was a living Play-Doh Werewolf Fun Factory. His hands, lying on top of the table, turned into big paws with long, black nails. And his teeth grew. Boy did they grow. I yelped like I’d gone canine myself and took a step back before I remembered I wasn’t in any real danger.

  The rumpled business man went white as a sheet, and I thought he’d die of cardiac arrest then and there. His voice a weak whimper, he managed to say, “No problem.”

  Bane stared with golden eyes that were beautiful but deadly. “Get the hell out,” he said, his speech more growl than voice.

  “Yes sir. Thank you.” The man scuttled out of the booth and out of the club with the speed of a vampire. I didn’t blame him. At least his pants were still dry.

  Bane sat still for a moment staring at his paws. The fur receded, and his face and hands reverted to their more mannish aspect. He continued to glare moodily.

  What a jerk.

  A little zap of blonde flew by me and landed on Bane’s lap. “Hey baby, how’s stuff?”

  I blinked at the skinny woman crazy enough to snuggle with a grumpy werewolf. Her barely-there breasts were encased in a black lace bra, and she sported a black slip of a skirt that showed off the bottom crescents of her buttocks. High heels and clunky shell

  earrings completed her ensemble. If this girl stripped, her show would last about ten seconds, tops. Talk about scanty.

  Bane suddenly looked more tired than mean. “Get off me, Fizz. I’m working.”

  The woman stood, her lips pursed in a childish pout. Her short dark-rooted blond hair was spiked artfully around her oval face. She had big brown eyes and a button of a nose. Fizz was cute, but hard in the way that the girls at the Beasts club were hard. And she looked to me like she might be getting a little old to be making top dollar in a strip joint. There was an emptiness in her expression that made me suspect she might not have many sharp tools in the shed.

  Her high-pitched ‘pretty please Daddy’ tone became more of a ratcheting nasal whine. “It’s always something with you. You never want me.”

  Bane flicked his eyes up to gaze at her face. His voice was quiet, and all the more menacing for its lack of volume. “Are you questioning me?”

  She swallowed, and the fear replaced pique in an instant. “Of course not, Bane. I just – C.K. gave me to you. Why won’t you fuck me?”

  Oh gross. Okay, Gerald and Dan had warned me the women were treated like possessions and not people, but jeez. This was just nasty.

  Bane dismissed her with an impatient flick of his fingers. “I’ll fuck you when I’m ready to. Go back to work, Fizz. I got stuff to do. Is Hazel here?”

  Disappointment battled with her need to please. Subservience won. “He ain’t been in all night, thank God. He’s such a freak.”

  Fizz pranced away, plastering a smile on for the customers. A waved twenty from a potbellied man at one table brought her running over for a lap dance. Bane watched her, his eyes flat and uncaring. Then he sighed and stood, heading for the door that said ‘Staff Only’.

  I blew out a breath and followed him. I was getting a whole bunch of nothing from this jaunt, if you didn’t count being grossed out. I was a lot of that.

  I followed Bane down the back hallway, passing a smoky dressing room (apparently the dancers didn’t care much about not smoking in public places, especially stuff of a more illegal nature) and an office. We went right out the back exit, coming out in the litter-strewn alley. The overripe sourness of a dumpster mixed uneasily with the marsh-salted air.

  Bane kept to the shadows beneath the club’s overhanging roof. He lit a cigarette.

  I sighed. He was so easy on the eyes but so hard on the peeves. “A smoker too, huh? You just get better and better all the time. What a waste of fur you are.”

  An unshaven man, his clothing a few days late for the laundry, shuffled up from behind the dumpster. He lumbered slowly, bent with the weight of the world. His shock of black hair was so untidy it nearly hid his rounded furred ears. A werebear, I identified.

  “Spare a cigarette?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Suck my cock?” Bane returned.

  To my amazement, the homeless-looking man laughed and straightened from his beaten-down hunch. “Are you having that good a day, Levi?”

  Levi?

  Bane blew out a disgusted breath that contained a bit of an animal whine to it. “I screwed up, got my ass in a sling. It’s nothing I can’t handle, but C.K. will drop the hammer to keep the rest in line.”

  The werebear said, “Shit. You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “It’ll be okay.”

  “Don’t get yourself killed. If you’re in trouble, we’ll yank you out, get somebody else in the gang.”

  Bane shook his head. “It took me a year to reach this point. The ATF can’t wait another year for an agent to get in with the Beasts, not with those tainted blood supplies showing up more frequently.”

  I yelled, “Holy crap. You’re an undercover agent, not a lowlife!”

  Of course they didn’t hear me. The bear crossed big hairy arms over his chest. “The chances of the contamination coming from the Fulton Falls’ chapter of the Beasts are incredibly slim anyway. I’m betting on Atlanta, myself.”

  Bane looked at his cigarette, which he hadn’t take
n a drag off of since lighting it. “Probably, but the dragon blood is coming from somewhere.” He tossed the half-burned butt on the ground. “All indicators are it’s moving from one of the ports in Florida or Georgia. Fulton Falls is as good a place for it to be smuggled in as any.”

  “Just stay careful, Levi. C.K. and Hazel have a few bodies between them. One more isn’t going to make them lose any sleep, and your life is worth more than a bunch of bloodsuckers.”

  “Aw, you care. Big hearts and kisses, sweetheart.” Bane’s unexpected smile lit his face, and I drank in the handsome visage.

  “Asshole.” The bear pretended to swipe a handful of claws at the werewolf. “I’ll check in with you in two days.”

  “All right, man.”

  The werebear shuffled off into the darkness and Bane/Levi went back into the club. I stayed in the alley for a few moments, trying to catch my breath. My mind reeled with the information I’d stumbled on.