Dead Man's Hand

Dead Man’s Hand

Richard Levesque

This is a work of fiction.
Any resemblance to people living or dead is purely
coincidental.

Copyright 2012 by Richard Levesque

All Rights Reserved.

Cover image Copyright 2012 by Mark Walsh

All Rights Reserved.

Used by Permission.

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Author’s Note

Sneak Peek:
Unfinished
Business

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Thanks as always go to my wife Kari,
whose

eye for detail and enthusiastic support

have helped this work take shape.

Special thanks also to Mark Walsh at
orbitalmindcontrol.com, whose

cover image has helped bring the work to
life.

One

I should have known better than to be in the Gaudy Mirage that
night. It’s not usually a rough place, but sometimes the tension
spikes: nights when there’s a high stakes game on TV, nights when
it’s hot and humid out and the Mirage’s air can’t keep up with all
the bodies in the room, nights when the moon is full.

The night I’m talking about, it had hit a
humid 95 earlier in the day, and the air in the city clung to you
like an extra layer of skin. I didn’t connect the heat with the
idea of trouble, though. The thought of a few tall drinks at the
Mirage’s bar pulled me in the way it did just about every evening
when I was done with work. Usually, I stopped at two and headed
home. That night, though, I’d needed more, and after the third one
I’d been able to forget that it was probably warmer inside the bar
than out.

And even though the moon was full that
night—bright and round in a cloudless sky—I didn’t take that as a
sign of danger either. The full moon brings out rough characters,
sure. But most of them know me, or know someone who’s hired me, and
since I do a decent job at whatever they hire me for—usually
keeping my clients out of jail, or keeping their employers from
giving them the axe once their true natures have been found out—my
reputation’s generally all I need to offset the dangers that the
moon can bring.

There was no big game on the Mirage’s
flatscreens that night, and though I didn’t have that particular
source of urban tension to make me watch my back, I did see that
the management had made a little mistake in booking the evening’s
entertainment. They’d signed Slinky Vagabond and Leper Messiah to
play on the same night, the first band opening for the second.
Julius Axelrod, who owned the Mirage, couldn’t be blamed for the
mix-up. Julian’s no hipster, and going off the names alone, he’d
likely had no idea that he’d signed two David Bowie tribute bands,
much less that the bands had a bitter rivalry or that their fans
had been known to take their fierce loyalty to the level of
violence.

I like a few cubes in my drinks, and I sat
at the bar watching condensation build on my fourth glass. The
little droplets had just about gotten me mesmerized enough to be
able to tune out the tough talk and posturing going on behind me as
one band or another tried to set up and plug in on the little stage
at the far end of the room. The blonde on the next stool was busy
ignoring me in between calls for refills and opportunities to flirt
with Mick Dante, the bartender. It was just as well, and not just
because she wasn’t my type. Her gray roots were showing, and her
shimmery gold dress was maybe two sizes too small for the package
it wrapped, the spaghetti straps threatening to pop with each
brayed laugh. There’d been nights in the past when her type would
have been the best I could do. Tonight, though, I just wasn’t in
the mood for company. Those droplets sliding down the side of my
glass, pulling others along as they went, were about all I had
interest in.

It hadn’t been a good evening. I’d lost a
wrongful termination case, which was bad enough, but I was angry
with myself for having lost it on a stupid technicality. My
client—former client, now—had been fired from her position after
getting The Bite and being unable to keep to a daylight schedule.
That’s usually an open-and-shut case; the undead have rights, after
all. But she’d neglected to tell me about the extenuating
circumstances clause she’d signed off on when she’d gotten hired
six years before. It gave her boss the right to let her go if she
couldn’t fulfill her duties regardless of reason—pregnancy,
disability, vampirism, it was all the same in the eyes of the law
once she’d signed on the dotted line. To hear her tell it after the
Night Court judge’s gavel had fallen, she’d forgotten all about
signing. I believed her. I mean, who really plans on getting The
Bite? Most people get a job, they sign whatever the new boss tells
them to sign and never figure they’ll have issues down the line.
But I should have asked her, should have investigated before
setting the court dates. Now I was kicking myself for having been
complacent.

My business card read, “Ace
Stubble, Attorney at Law” in embossed red letters. Under that,
“Representing the Undead and Paranormal Communities” and under that
“Because It’s Not a Crime to Be Different.” I didn’t believe that
last bit, not at all. But it helped pull in the clients, so I left
it. Vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, the demonically
possessed…they were all my people. When they got in trouble—civil
or legal—they usually ended up in my office after lawyers with more
flash turned them away out of prejudice or fear or the need to keep
daylight hours. Me, I had no qualms. And I like the night. I’d
grown up with a mother who was a legitimate medium and a father in
prison for psychic slavery, so the odd, the undead, and the
paranormal had always seemed…well,
normal
to me. Following my career
path had been like slipping into a groove.

And I was thinking about it in just that way
while I stared at my glass and tried to ignore the woman beside me,
wondering if I’d somehow managed to get a scratch in the groove
that had gotten me off track. Maybe I needed a vacation, I told
myself, one involving sand and a blonde slightly less obnoxious
than my current neighbor. And just as that fantasy was really
getting going, sliding along like the droplets down my glass, I
felt a rough tap on my shoulder, almost a push. Someone on the
stage was checking sound, a tentative run-through of the “Rebel
Rebel” riff, and the woman beside me honked out another laugh at
nothing in particular. It all ran together—the laugh, the music,
the pumped up Bowie fans in the background, my lost case, and now
the heavy hand on my shoulder. I’d had it and turned around, ready
to pop somebody in the nose.

He wasn’t big so much as he was thick, and I
immediately thought better of swinging on him. That neck was so
wide that his chin wasn’t going to budge no matter how much I put
into a punch. The guy must have sensed me tense up and then wind
down in the second it took me to spin around, but he didn’t flinch,
just grinned. He was ready for it, wanted it. That should have told
me right there I was in trouble; I should have bolted, but I
didn’t, thinking I could talk my way out of it. But an instant
later, I saw how wrong I was.

Even in the dim light of the Mirage, I could
see that the whites of his eyes were going yellow, and when he
growled, “That’s my seat,” his breath washed over me. I’d smelled
it a hundred times before—from every Labrador and Shepherd and mutt
I’d had as a kid to more clients than I could count. Dog breath.
Unmistakable.

I wanted to say, “You’re my people. I’m Ace
Stubble. You might need me some day.” But it didn’t come out. Those
thoughts flew into my mind and out again faster than I could get my
lips to move, faster than I could get my ass off the stool.

Seconds after the words were out of his
mouth, his hands were on my shirt, and I was yanked off the stool,
flung through the air and into the crowd of angry Bowie fans. With
whatever good luck I still had, I landed on my shoulder and rolled
into three or four people’s legs. There were screams and shouts,
and everything was a blur as I tried shaking off the shock of my
sudden flight and hard landing. I tried scrambling to my feet, but
the gasps from the crowd and the rush of movement away from me told
me it was useless. Turning my head toward the bar, I saw him
rushing toward me, halfway through the Change.

It’s never something pretty to watch—the
snout elongating, the ears growing pointed, the fur erupting and
the fangs and claws sprouting. But when a werewolf is drunk and
angry, and his wrath is directed right at you…well, terrifying
doesn’t quite cover it. I about pissed myself halfway through his
charge, and managed to roll sideways just as he made his final
dive, his claws skidding on the wooden floor where I’d been a
second ago. I rolled again, trying to figure out how to get my feet
underneath me once more and picturing myself running halfway to the
door before feeling those claws on my shoulders and his full weight
on my back as his fangs closed on my neck.

But then I heard a yelp, like a dog would
make when you accidentally step on its tail.

A more beautiful sound I’ve never heard.

I managed to turn my head in the werewolf’s
direction and saw only a woman blocking my view of him, her back to
me. She appeared to be slightly bent forward with her legs spread
apart as far as her knee-length skirt would allow—for stability it
appeared, although the skinny heels on her shiny black shoes looked
like they were ready to slip out from under her no matter how ready
for a fight her stance made her look. From where I lay, she looked
to have one arm drawn back ready to strike and the other held far
out in front of her like she was warding something off. The crowd
around us had fallen suddenly silent at the werewolf’s yelp, and
the guitar player on the stage had stopped his riffs, apparently
aware that something more than fan rivalry was afoot on the dance
floor.

With some effort I got my feet under me and
pulled myself into a crouch, ready to spring if my attacker should
regain his advantage. Already winded and with my heart racing, I
don’t think I would have gotten far, so you can imagine my relief
when the crowd parted and I caught sight of the werewolf slinking
away. Once the crowd closed ranks around his retreat, the woman
who’d come between us held her defensive posture for another
moment, then straightened up and turned toward me.

The first thing I saw was the big silver
crucifix she held in her right hand, a long silver chain hanging
down. I wore one myself for just such an occasion, but I hadn’t
even thought of using it in my haste to fight or flee. I told
myself again that I really needed a vacation.

Then, in the instant that I focused past the
crucifix, I saw that it wasn’t a random stranger who had saved me,
but someone I knew.

With a flick of her wrist, the crucifix was
hanging from her forearm and her open hand extended down to me.
“Losing your mojo, Ace?” she said.

I shook my head, both in self-deprecation
and disbelief, then accepted her hand and let her help me to my
feet. “Thanks, Pixel,” I said. After taking a second to shake off
the attack, I nodded toward the bar. “Buy you one? It’s the least I
can do.”

She looked around the room. We stood in the
center of a cleared circle of still frightened looking Bowie fans.
All their bravado and posturing had deflated in the face of the
werewolf’s charge. I think every one of them would have been happy
to concede that their rivals’ band was better, so long as they just
got on with it already, played “Jean Genie” and let the fans get
the paranormal stuff behind them. Now the fans’ earlier ire had
been transferred onto Pixel and me, and they looked at us like we
had the plague. Pixel picked up on it at the same time I did.

“
Maybe not here,” she
said.

I nodded, straightened my shirtfront, threw
a five onto the bar for Mick, and turned to go, but not before
noticing that the graying, braying blonde I’d been beside now
appraised me with a keen eye. I’d suddenly become interesting to
her, and here I was leaving with another woman.

When we got to the door, Pixel dropped her
arm so the crucifix hung down again. I thought of pulling my own
out but figured there wasn’t much point. Once a werewolf gets a
taste of silver, he needs some time to lick his wounds. Though he
might have been drunk when he Changed, the attack’s outcome would
have sobered him fast, and the chances were slim that he was
waiting outside the Gaudy Mirage to even the score.