Demon Accords 10: Rogues (37 page)

“Sir, we need to infiltrate his group, befriend him.  It’s going to take a very special asset to pull this off, but I believe that Michael here found just the person,” Stewart said, reaching into a briefcase and pulling out a folder.  He chuckled.  “Luckily, I’ve never really left old school behind,” he said, handing the folder to the President, who perused its contents.

“Brilliant.  Kind of an underdog, though?  And he’s apparently attached pretty strongly to his friends and that Reynolds girl,” President Garth said.

“Yes sir.  Declan has a weakness for underdogs, and we aren’t trying to supplant any of the friends, just plant our own.  We need intelligence, we need to make friends with him. I would suggest dropping any idea of charges, returning his and her gear, and maybe even publicly acknowledging their bravery.  I’m told that the other kids at the school were pretty impressed with what they saw on the news.  They have a saying:
Never attack a witch in her own home.
  Declan and Stacia did that against a prepared witch and a pack of weres.  Acknowledging their skill can’t hurt.  Sir, consider this.  If that computer is protecting him and it controls the world’s nuclear stockpile, we don’t have to worry about attack as long as he’s here among us.”

The President of the United States stood stock still, face frozen in the harsh light of the hissing propane lanterns.  Finally, he nodded.  “You may be right, Nathan.  I’ll grant you things haven’t worked out with Gordon and Demidova.  We’ll try things your way.  But if we don’t get results, we’ll have to reevaluate.”

“Yes sir.”

“Alright.  What are we going to call this mess?”  the President asked.

“We’re thinking about Project Brutus,” Charlie suggested.  “As in Marcus Brutus.”

“No man too powerful and all that?  Good enough.  Project Brutus it is,” the President agreed.

“We have a protocol written up, sir. We refer to the subject as the Kid.  No names, nothing on electronic media of any kind.  No subordinates except the asset’s handler.  Nothing to be mentioned out loud.  If any of you talk in your sleep, it’s time to wire your mouths shut,” Charlie said, looking around.

“Mention what out loud, Charlie?  I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Very good, Mr. President.  Thank you for coming.”

“Thank me with results, gentlemen.  Put this country back on top.”

“Yes sir.”

One month after the mill assault.

Los Vegas, Nevada

The Painted Horse Gentlemen’s club billed itself as the biggest and best strip club in Sin City.  Best is debatable; every strip aficionado has their own tastes and desires.  But it was easily the biggest, with over five hundred dancers at any given time.  Located a half mile from the Strip, the Painted Horse had been built in the late seventies from the ground up to be a massive cash cow of a strip club.  The line of limos waiting to offload their eager club-goers stretched around the massive horseshoe-shaped entry road.  Inside the thirty-three-thousand-square-foot building, three big stage complexes offered multiple shows and numerous fully nude dancers, with dozens of smaller circular seating areas, each centered around a stripper pole.  Upstairs VIP lounges provided much more intimate and much more expensive shows.

The club was pretty much flooded with customers from the time it opened at four p.m. till it shut down at seven a.m.  Aaron Rider, the club’s owner, made more money in a week from his scantily clad dancers’ activities than the next three biggest strip clubs combined.

Part of his success was his hands-on approach.  He personally interviewed and auditioned every dancer, DJ, bouncer, and bartender.  No detail was too small for his attention.  It helped that he was, by nature, ruthless and amoral.

“Aaron, there’s a girl here who wants to audition,” his personal bodyguard, Clark, told him as he strode back from checking the liquor inventories.

“Auditions are always scheduled, Clark. You know that?” he asked, puzzled.  Clark had been with him for years and his scarred, battered face hid a surprising intelligence.  Most figured him for nothing but three hundred pounds of muscle.  It worked to Clark’s advantage and, therefore, Aaron’s.

“I know sir, but I think you should make an exception this time,” Clark said.

“Must be some piece of tail?” Aaron asked, curious.

“Well, she is, but there’s something about her.  I’d feel better if we got her auditioning over with now,” Clark said.

“Wait, she’s hot but you don’t like her?” Aaron asked, coming to a stop to look at his giant assistant’s face.

“She gives me the creeps, and her kid is worse,” the giant said.

“Kid?  What kind of stripper brings her kid to an audition?  She knows this is a full-nude club, right?” Aaron asked, turning and walking faster toward his office.

“Of course sir. She had to walk by ten girls at least just to get near the offices.”

“Let’s go see this beauty and then throw her out.  Why didn’t you turn her away?” Aaron asked.

“Something about her.  I didn’t like her, but she’s really hot and there’s something different that’s hard to explain.  I didn’t want to make a mistake,” Clark said.

They entered the administrative section of the building and moved toward Aaron’s office.

The outer office was empty, no wannabe-stripper or kid, and his secretary was off for the day.  The doors to his personal office were open.

“You let her into my office?” Aaron demanded, angry.

“No boss, the doors were locked.  I left them out here,” Clark said, worried.  The big man moved ahead of his boss and entered the office first.  Five steps into the room, he stopped dead.  Aaron almost ran into him, side-stepping at the last moment.

As he came around the wide expanse of Clark’s body, a bizarre sight greeted him.

His expensive designer rug was pulled away from the floor in front of his desk and a kid of about ten was drawing a huge shape on the fake hardwood floor with what looked like sidewalk chalk.  A young woman stood beside the boy, directing his work, her hands on jean-clad hips.

They both turned to look at him and Clark, and he took a sharp breath.  The girl was young, real young.  Maybe nineteen, perhaps even younger.  Beautiful.  Caramel skin, black hair, and dark chocolate eyes.  A dynamite figure in designer jeans and a tight bodysuit top that highlighted her assets.

The kid, who looked to be ten, had to be her brother, as she was simply too young to be the mother.  He too had black hair, but lighter skin and eyes that caused the hair on the back of his neck to rise.

“Clark, get them the fuck outta here,” he said, his anger overcoming his initial shock.

“This audition is permanently over, Miss…”

“Lou,” she said, her voice soft and accented.  “You can call me Lou.  And it’s not an audition.  It’s an interview.  I’m interviewing you, Aaron Rider,” she said, smiling slightly.

Clark was bearing down on the boy, who had simply gone back to work on the floor, his back to the two men.

Disturbed beyond words by the invasion, the vandalism, and temporary loss of control, Aaron focused on his bodyguard as the giant reached down to grab the boy’s neck in one massive hand.  That’s why he had a clear view of what happened next.  Or at least as clear as anyone could have had.

Clark’s hand never actually touched the boy.  Instead, the boy went from kneeling with his back to them to standing fluidly and facing them.  To climbing Clark’s outstretched arm like a gym rope, his fingers formed into claws that left bloody pinpricks in the bouncer’s white dress shirt as he swarmed up the man.  Time slowed, but the boy moved faster than Aaron could keep up with.  Up on Clark’s shoulder, behind his head, gripping the giant’s face with a twisted hand that cut deep into flesh, grabbing the back of the head with the other, locking his legs over the bodyguard’s shoulders and twisting with absolutely impossible strength. 

The running joke was that Clark had no neck, just a head mounted on a body.  The kid’s twist proved the joke wrong—a sharp snap announced the location and destruction of the giant’s neck bones.

Clark’s head was twisted back toward Aaron and he died with a shocked expression.  The kid released his leg hold and fell backward toward the ground.  His body twisted around in another impossible move, like a cat righting itself, his feet now aimed for the floor, his right hand hooking the back of the dead man’s shirt collar, pulling the massive body down .  It landed in the dead center of the hand-drawn circle, bouncing twice before settling, while the boy touched down so lightly, he hardly had to flex his legs.

Aaron, shocked completely out of his normally decisive mindframe, turned to look at the girl.  She was smiling proudly.  She made a pulling gesture at Aaron, and he instantly couldn’t breathe.  All the air ripped itself from his lungs.  Immediately, his vision started to swim, spots forming.

“I’ve chosen your club, Aaron.  It has the perfect combination of income, depravity, and desperation for my purposes.  My son, Dragan, needs a certain atmosphere of moral decrepitude and sin to reach his full potential.  I need resources and space to prepare my defenses.  There’s only so much time before we’re found, you know.  But enough of that.  I’m satisfied.  The Painted Horse it is.  Now, the only question is… do you want to live to see how this turns out?” she asked.

He was going dark quickly, on his knees and choking almost quietly.  He managed to nod.

She gestured and his air came back, flooding into his lungs as fast as it had left.  He gulped huge swallows of air, unable to do anything but watch as she approached the dead body of his oldest employee.  She pulled something from a bag on the floor.  Something bloody. 

“You have such a fascinating variety of reptiles here in Nevada.  I like reptiles; much sturdier nervous system than mammals.  Of course, I’m more familiar with the water moccasins and alligators of the bayou than these desert dwellers, like this Western Diamondback, but it should do fine,” she said in her curious accent.  Now that she mentioned bayou, he thought there was some Louisiana patois in her voice.

She gestured at the boy.  Instantly, he was bent over Clark’s body, his right arm flashing down the back.  The white shirt split and went red, the skin underneath parting like tissue under the claws that Aaron could see sprouting from the kid’s fingers.  He put both hands on either side of the cut and easily pulled the opening apart.

“The best place is just under the lowest thoracic ganglion, snuggled up close to the celiac plexus.  You’d probably call it the solar plexus,” she said, casually squatting down and reaching into the wound held open by the boy.

She looked in as she put the bloody bundle inside Clark’s back, then looked up and away, clearly feeling her way to her objective.  Satisfied, she stood up, letting her bloody hand hang by her side, drops of red spattering the floor.  The boy let go of the wound, which snapped back closed, then shot over to the desk, returning with Aaron’s stapler.  Within moments, the wound was stapled shut and the boy retreated to the girl’s side, taking her bloody hand in his.  The shift from killer to child was sudden and completely incongruous, slamming Aaron’s shattered worldview with another blow.

The girl started to chant, her eyes closed, and Aaron shifted slightly on his knees, maybe some instinct to stand and flee awakening.

The boy’s head whipped around and two cold, reptilian eyes locked onto him, freezing his body before he could think to do it himself.

The chant continued and the girl held up her right hand, still clutching the boy’s left.

The body on the floor jerked, dragging Aaron’s horror-filled eyes back to it in time to see it jerk again.  Then both arms moved, pressing the hands against the floor.  Clark’s body pressed up in a grotesque parody of a push-up.  The knees folded and the body came up to a kneeling position.  Then it stood, black pants covered in chalk dust, white shirt drenched in red.

Clark turned and Aaron’s hand came up to his mouth as he almost puked.  The neck was still twisted almost all the way around.

“Dragan, would you fix his neck please?” Lou asked, her eyes open and studying the giant with a pleased look.

The boy took two quick steps across the floor, placed his right foot easily on the body’s kneecap, plucked once on the loose material of the shirt with his bloody left hand, which pulled him up into the air and even with the head.  Both hands flicked out and spun Clark’s face forward before the upward momentum of his climb pushed him back and away from the body to land lightly on his toes.  It was an effortless, unnaturally athletic maneuver that was inhuman and horrific.

“Perfect.  Now, Aaron, we have much to do.  Listen closely,” she said and began to talk to him of plans and details. 

Unnoticed on the big mahogany desk, a small green LED lit up on his phone, right next to the speaker symbol.

The End