CHAPTER 4
The Law Offices of Rondeau, Katz, and Smith were in a really nice building a few miles from the Last Dragon. According to Eddings it was one of those big corporate firms with a local rep for being a bunch of cutthroat mega-sharks. Since Management was so absurdly rich and secretly invested in everything it made sense that he’d keep a fleet of high-powered lawyers on retainer.
After having breakfast at a greasy spoon, we said our goodbyes to the Las Vegas team, then stopped at our hotel and changed out of our construction worker outfits. Since our next stop was upscale, we needed to look the part. I hadn’t brought a suit, but I could at least step it up to a shirt with buttons and pants without fifteen extra pockets. I’d been a corporate accountant, I could pull off business casual. Trip on the other hand actually managed to look comfortable in a tie, though I think that was only because that was how he dressed for church every Sunday. And Milo…Well, considering the stylish blazer he’d brought along was bright green and purple—it made him look like the Riddler—we’d just leave him in the parking lot.
So the three of us left to pay a visit to Management’s lawyer. Eddings hadn’t been lying, it really was a fancy establishment. The cheapest car in the lot was a new Audi. There were lots of young, hard charger, Harvard grad looking assholes heading into work, wearing expensive suits, expensive haircuts, and drinking overpriced coffees. My immediate dislike for them told me that maybe Mom’s frugal nature had rubbed off on me. This was probably the sort of place that Grant Jefferson had done his lawyering.
As Trip and I walked up the steps to the entrance, the first clue that something had gone wrong recently was the work crew replacing a window on the top floor. The next was the police tape blocking off some of the landscaping beneath. There were still little shiny bits of glass in the flowerbed. Inside, the receptionists were all dressed in black and some of them looked like they’d been crying recently.
Trip gave me a nervous glance. Uh oh.
I went up to the desk. She had a little name plate in front of her that read Marcy. “Hi. I’d like to talk to Mr. Rondeau.”
She tried to remain professional, but at the mention of the name she immediately got weepy. “I’m sorry, but he passed away recently.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.” I gritted my teeth. Our target was must have found out Management was keeping tabs on him. Outwardly, I remained calm, but inside I really wanted to swear and kick something. “I’m shocked.”
Trip knew me well enough that he could tell I was pissed, so he stepped in. “Do you mind me asking what happened?”
“The police said he committed suicide.” Now she was getting really teary-eyed and even had to reach for a Kleenex. It must be nice having a receptionist who actually seemed to like people. We got Dorcas. “It was terrible. Ben was the nicest boss ever. He seemed fine. Then one day he just jumped out of his window.”
“That’s so tragic. I’m terribly sorry.”
“He had a wife and an ex-wife with kids.”
“The best thing you can do is reach out, let them know they’re loved, and keep them in your prayers.” and when somebody as genuinely good natured and well intentioned as Trip said stuff like that it was obviously not just meant as a platitude. He actually seemed to cheer her up a little. “Was he all by himself?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean were there any witnesses? I’m just thinking, if it was so unexpected, maybe it was an accident, and he just fell out the window.”
“Oh no…Apparently he had some kind of breakdown. He called his secretary right before, ranting about how some creature appeared in his office and…” She sniffed and composed herself. “Never mind. I’d better not talk about it…”
Well shit.
“I’m so sorry, did you gentlemen have an appointment?”
“We were just supposed to pick something up. Maybe he left it for us?”
“And what was your name, sir?” She began clicking away at her computer.
“Look under Last Dragon.”
“The casino? We don’t have any business with them that I’m aware of. Oh my gosh! Were you there during the terrorist attack?”
“Luckily, we were off site.” Way off site. “See if it was filed under Management,” as I said that she gave me an odd look. “It’s like a stage name.”
She looked to Trip. “Are you a rapper?”
“Gospel singer,” I said before Trip could respond. “And magician. Gospel singing magician. His performance is breathtaking.”
“Oh.” She went back to typing. Trip rolled his eyes at me. He was lucky, if I’d had longer to think of something better I would have said he was in a Prince tribute band. “I’m sorry, sir, but there’s nothing in Mr. Rondeau’s schedule or notes under that name, but don’t worry. None of the work he did for any of his clients is lost.”
I had a sneaky suspicion that this particular work was long gone.
“I could call for another associate to assist if you would like.”
And have Asag’s minions toss some other poor bastard out the window for poking around in his business? “No thanks. We’ve got to go.”
“Again, my condolences for your loss,” Trip said. Then we headed for the door.
Outside, the two of us stopped. I squinted at the passing lawyers. “That was a bust.”
“Sure was,” Trip said. “The guy holding Management’s backup gets murdered right after MCB scrubs his cave? Our bad guy found out somehow. What now?”
“Fly home empty handed, I guess.”
Dejected and annoyed, we headed back to the rental car, only to find our red bearded Riddler looking smug. As I got into the passenger’s seat I said, “We got shot down. What’re you smiling about?”
“This.” Milo held up a scrap of paper. “You got somebody’s attention. One of the lawyers just walked by in a real hurry and dropped this next to the car. It was a little too ham fisted for random littering, so I waited until he was gone then picked it up.”
I took the note. It read “You want the dragon file? It’ll cost you. Let’s do lunch.” Followed by an address.
“You shifty bastards,” I muttered. Then I passed the note to Trip.
“I wonder what the cost is going to be.”
“That depends on whether the guy with the file realizes what he’s involved with. How stupid did he look, Milo?”
He shrugged. “Average stupid?”
* * *
The address was a sleazy dive bar. It was the kind of establishment where Jon Taffer would throw the food on the floor and yell at the management for not caring hard enough. Our renegade lawyer had probably picked it because it was the kind of sketchy hole where clandestine parties conducted shady business in the movies. The problem was that in real life, this time of day there were only a couple of alcoholics inside, so the one clean cut, twenty something, white dude wearing khakis and a polo shirt, kind of stuck out.
I walked in the door at noon on the dot. It took me all of ten seconds to pick out the lawyer. And most of that was because I had to wait for my eyes to adjust from being out in the sunshine. He had a corner booth. Back to the wall even. That was a nice touch. I walked straight over to him and sat down.
“How’d you know it was me?” he asked.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Okay, okay. You can call me Mr. Steele.”
I snorted. “Your name is Kevin Maxwell and you’re an associate at Rondeau, Katz, and Smith.
“How’d you know that?”
“My buddy found your picture and bio on the company website.”
“Oh…Fine.” He actually hadn’t expected that. Don’t quit your day job. “What should I call you?”
“Yukon Cornelius. Now quit wasting my time. I want that file.”
I wasn’t even trying to be intimidating, but Kevin was looking a little cowed. “It’s going to cost you.”
“Yeah, you covered that in your note. How much?” A waitress came by. Dive or not, that was some pretty quick service. Or maybe when you got stuck working in the middle of the day you got desperate for tips. “Hang on, Kevin.”
“What do you want, honey?”
“Coke.” I was betting the soda gun in this place hadn’t been cleaned since I’d graduated high school. It would be like drinking carbonated botulism. “In a can, please.”
“Pretty boy here is having a Sprite. Bunch of hard party animals at this table.”
I handed her a fifty. “Then how about some privacy?”
“Hey, thanks, hon.” She stuck Ulysses S. Grant in her bra as she wandered off.
“Great.” I turned back to Kevin. “Now where were we?”
He leaned in conspiratorially. “I overheard you asking about Management.”
“Do you even have any idea who that is?”
“Everybody connected knows he’s the organized crime lord that secretly runs a bunch of casinos in this town.”
“Awesome.” It was good Kevin thought this was some sort of criminal thing, because that was way less weird than what it actually was. “You run with that.”
“I heard Ben Rondeau talking to Management on the phone. I knew how valuable this was, so when he died I snagged the thumb drive. And if Management wants it back, you’re going to have to pay me for it.”
“Well duh.” I was silent while the waitress brought me a Coke in a dusty glass bottle. Unfortunately, it was warm. That’s what I got for not being specific. “Thanks.”
Once she was gone, Kevin went back to trying to play the tough guy. “I’ve got it some place safe.”
“I sure hope so, because you have no clue what you’re involved with.” I tried not to be too threatening as I said that. I was afraid Kevin might try to run, and then I’d have to choke him out, and that would cause a scene. Some people are jittery like that. Kevin and I were probably about the same age, but I was guessing the two of us had taken very different life paths.
“Whatever Mr. Rondeau had, it was important enough to kill for. I know he didn’t commit suicide. Somebody pushed him out that window,” He said like it was a big shocking revelation.
“Yeah, no shit. I’m actually an expert on the topic of defenestration. But since we’re on the subject, the receptionist said he was talking weird before he died. Do you know what he said?”
“Sure, but it was weird. He said that this red devil had started following him. I’m talking horns and a tail, hooves, wings, third eye in the middle of its forehead, the works, kind of devil. I think he was under so much pressure secretly working for you mafia types that he had a psychotic break or something.”
“Yeah, because being stalked by a demon is so implausible. Before I buy back Don Management’s property, you got anything else to share?”
“We’d just had a meeting. He was all agitated. Not two seconds after we close the door, I hear him screaming in his office about the devil coming from him. I don’t know, the hit man must have been hiding in the closet or something. I heard the glass break, and then I heard this real creepy voice say something right before he tossed Ben out the window.”
“What?”
Kevin was wide eyed and a little freaked out. “How dare you share the master’s name?”
That meant the red devil was another of Asag’s minions. “Tough guy like you I’m surprised you didn’t kick the door in to go save your boss.”
“I was, until Mr. Creepy Voice asks that like he was really pissed off, like how dare you? Then whoosh, Ben takes a header right into the flower bed.”
Kevin’s company bio said he’d gone to Stanford, but he was trying way too hard to sound like he was from New Jersey. It was kind of painful. “Okay. How much do you want?”
“A million dollars. In cash.”
I laughed in his face. I think that hurt his feelings. “I’ll give you twenty bucks.”
“You gave the waitress a fifty!”
“Well, she’s not the one drawing the wrath of an unholy terror down on her head. Trust me, Kevin. Taking that file off of your hands will be the biggest favor anyone has ever done for you. The second they find out you’ve got it, you’re toast.”
“If you don’t pay me, then I’ll leak this file to the press!”
“That would actually be hilarious if you did. Twenty bucks and I’ll pay for your Sprite.”
“Come on. I know Mr. Management is a billionaire,” he whined. “I’ve got student loans to pay off.”
Trip was watching the back exit. Milo was out front. Both of them were listening to all of this over the radio. “And this is why Julie handles the negotiations,” Trip said in my ear piece.
“Seriously, you think I work for the mafia—”
“Well, just look at you!”
“And you’re attempting to blackmail the mafia?” Monster Hunters ended up paying a lot of bribes, that was just the cost of doing business in our often legally nebulous world, but now I was just offended in principle. “How about I just punch you in the head until you tell me where it is?”
“But I don’t want to get punched in the head!”
“Nobody wants to get punched in the head, Kevin. That’s why people like me use it as negotiating tool. You’d think they’d have covered that at Stanford Law. I got an accounting degree from a state college and I still figured that out pretty early on.”
“Z, you’ve got company. Four tough guys pulling up on motorcycles,” Milo warned over my earpiece. “Might just be normal customers Three are stopping by the front door. Last one kept going.”
“Please tell me you’re not a trial lawyer.”
“I do entertainment law.”
“Good. For a second I was feeling really bad that you might end up representing some poor sucker in court.” Maybe dealing with Shane “Ultimate Fighting Lawyer” Durant had spoiled me, but I’d come to expect more backbone from the legal profession. Now that asshole was focused like a laser beam, so I was betting he was a beast in court. “I’ve got about two hundred bucks in my wallet. How about you can have all of that, and as a bonus I don’t break your nose for annoying me?”
“Again with the punching. Can we table the punching for a bit? How about half a million?”
I could hear the distinctive noise of the Harleys up front. The engines stopped. I glanced over. The waitress was looking out the window, curious, which told me these weren’t regulars. I watched the front door. “Hang on a minute.”
“That last biker just pulled up around the back,” Trip said.
Well, that was suspicious.
“A quarter million?”
“Dude, you suck at this. Just shut up for a second.”
“He’s just watching the back door, like he’s expecting someone to make a run for it.”
That meant whoever they were, they didn’t know me very well.
Two bikers strutted in like they owned the place. The last one stayed outside. Real suspicious. They were wearing leather vests and jeans, and sporting as many tats as my brother, only Mosh’s were classier. One was a skin head and the other had a beard that was nearly as good as Milo’s. Then I noticed the patch on the bikers’ vests. The emblem was a black squid with red eyes. I hurried and turned around so they wouldn’t see me through the booth.
“Oh, not these jokers again,” I muttered, knowing that Milo and Trip would pick it up. “We’ve got Condition.” The Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition were my least favorite death cultists ever. They gave death cults a bad name, and that took effort.
“Condition what?” Kevin whispered back.
“Condition you’re screwed.”
“Say the word, Z. We’ll come in guns blazing.”
“Hold on, guys.” I glared at Kevin. “Did you try to set up a meeting to sell that drive to anyone else?”
“There was this attractive British chick asking about Management yesterday. I dropped a note for her to find too.”
That had probably been Lucinda Hood. “You’re an idiot.”
“How was I supposed to know she wasn’t with you?”
I should have just shot the Old One worshipping jackasses and gotten it over with while their eyes were adjusting to the dimness. But Hunters couldn’t just go around shooting human beings with impunity. The cops arresting me weren’t going to know what the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition was, or even care, because that whole Freedom of Religion thing still covered apocalyptic cults, at least until it was too late.
If they weren’t PUFF applicable, then I was supposed to behave like any other law abiding citizen. The MCB hated the Condition, so I’d probably get off. Eventually. Maybe. But I didn’t have time to sit in jail, and I didn’t want the MCB asking questions about what we were up to and screwing up our mission.
The bikers spotted Kevin as easily as I had and started walking this way. The waitress/bartender spoke up. “Get you boys something?”
“Shut your whore mouth, bitch.”
Still recruiting from the best and brightest I see. Stay classy, Condition. Stay classy.
Even though I was going to try and solve this without committing a bunch of felonies, I pulled my compact .45 from my inside the waistband holster, and held it under the table. Kevin saw me do that, and his eyes went wide. “Play it cool,” I warned him. “You don’t know what they’re talking about. You didn’t leave any note. If anything happens, stay low and try not to get shot.”
The bikers stopped at our booth. The bald one had his hands in fists at his side. Amateur. You wanted to keep your hands loose. Clenched muscles slowed you down. Beardly folded his arms, trying to do that thing where it puffs up your biceps to make them look bigger. Neat trick, but I’ve never needed to do that. They obviously knew who Kevin was, but apparently they didn’t know me. “Who the hell are you?”
I almost told them my real name, but I refrained. “I’m his wingman. We’re here to pick up chicks.”
“Whatever…” Baldy and turned to our hapless lawyer. “Where’s the dragon file?”
He looked terrified. Come on. Tell these jokers to take a hike. You can do—
“I want one million dollars in exchange for the drive!” Kevin blurted.
Shit.
The bikers started laughing. It was that sort of sadistic “we’re about to kidnap and torture a dude” laugh which indicated the Condition’s negotiation with Kevin was going to go even worse than mine had. “Hey, wingman, you’re gonna want to beat it. We need to have a little talk with your friend out back.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. The buddy system is sacred.” Since neither of them recognized me, they were probably newer recruits. I can’t imagine I was super popular over there, having blown up their god and all. Since I’d killed her father, Lucinda was probably still holding a grudge too.
“Have it your way, tough guy.” Baldy gave a sharp whistle, like he was calling a dog.
The front door opened and the last biker came in.
Now that one got my attention. He was dressed like the others, but under his leathers he was wearing a hoodie. It was pulled up tight, and he was keeping his head down. He walked toward us, half strut, half shuffle, like he was trying to mimic the others, but he wasn’t used to walking like a human being.
I can’t really claim monster detector as one of my gifts, but sometimes I just knew when something was wrong. Maybe it was related to the whole Chosen psychic thing, but when I came across something unnatural, I could just feel it in my gut. And the one in the hoody was off. He didn’t belong here. And by here, I didn’t mean this bar, I mean the mortal plane of existence.
“Hand over that file, or you’re gonna have to deal with him,” Beardly warned.
You didn’t need to have any mystical monster sense to recognize that this thing was dangerous. The weird biker growled at the bartender/waitress as he went by. She quickly decided it was a good time to go check on something under the bar. The atmosphere in the room had changed. One of the two alcoholics got up and hurried out the front door, making him the smartest person here. The other one was too blitzed to know what was going on. So much for witnesses.
“What’s he supposed to be?” I asked.
“He’s bad news…Stop.” Baldy held up one hand, and the creature obediently froze, head down, snorting aggressively. Those were not human noises. “Hold. Wait for instructions.” It was obvious the thing was under Baldy’s control, and the second he took it off the leash it would do something horrible to us. He turned back to me. “You should have left when you had the chance, wingman.”
If Kevin hadn’t wet his khakis yet, he was probably getting really close.
“Hold on.” I told the bikers. “You guys can have him.”
“Aw man,” Kevin moaned, probably realizing he was probably about to get his arms ripped off and still be stuck with student loans.
“But I’ve got one question first.”
“What?” Beardly snapped.
“Is that thing PUFF applicable?” I nodded toward the hoodie wearing monstrosity.
“Huh?”
“Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund. I’m thinking he’s some kind of undead, and if that’s the case, and you dipshits are running around with him, that means legally you count as necromancers. Now I figure you’re too stupid to animate the dead yourself, but that’s a technicality.”
They exchanged a confused glance. I guess at this point people were usually quaking at their scary pet monster and begging for mercy, not getting lippy over definitions.
“Lucinda Hood must really be hard up for muscle these days to recruit you brainiacs. Look. It’s simple. If you’re necromancers, it means legally I can do this—“
I opened fire.
The compact STI jumped in my hand. I couldn’t aim from under the table, but at this range, it didn’t matter much. I just pointed it in their general direction and started yanking the trigger. Baldy got hit in the thigh and twice in the pelvis. Beardly took one in the gut and another to the knee. As they went crashing down, I shifted and put four holes in Hoodie, but whatever it was, it didn’t react. Apparently it took the command to hold very literally. I slid out of the booth, covering them with my pistol.
“If you’re necromancers, the MCB can’t give me any shit for shooting you!” I hoped Kevin was taking notes, because these mopes had just gotten lawyered.
One was screaming. The other swearing, but the command for their undead to activate must have been in there somewhere, because it whipped its head back and roared. The hood fell. You could mistake it for a living thing, if the light was really bad and you weren’t that close, but at conversational distance it was obviously a mess of patchwork body parts. I had guessed right. It was a stitched together zombified automaton, Hood family recipe. And Lucinda was getting pretty good if she was building undead with enough grace to ride a bike.
I shot it right between its sunken yellow eyes. It blinked. I fired my last .45 round damned near through the same hole. But it still didn’t go down. Crap. With these things you had to absolutely wreck their brains.
Before one of the cultists could shout the command to attack, I grabbed my still unopened bottle of Coke, and stabbed it right into the monster’s forehead, aiming for the bullet holes. Thankfully it didn’t shatter in my hands. My aim was good. Skin split and skull cracked. I shoved until the bottle got stuck, then I grabbed the automaton by the back of the head, and slammed it face down into our table, hard as I could, driving the Coke deep into its brain cavity. The bottle shattered. The table broke. And the undead hit the ground in a twitching heap, spraying ooze and soda. Kevin screamed and climbed up onto this seat.
I turned back to the wounded bikers just as Baldy was reaching into his vest. Only Milo got there before he could draw, and Baldy caught a Birkenstock to the face.
Trip rushed in the back, pistol in hand. He took in the mess, then shot the automaton in the base of the skull twice just to be sure. “I tossed the last one in the dumpster.”
My ears were ringing. “Did you kill him?”
“Eh…Maybe?” Trip looked a little embarrassed. “That depends on how hard his head is. I wasn’t trying to, but I was in a hurry.”
Kevin was still screaming, and that was getting on my nerves. The guy I’d shot in the stomach was making less noise. “Shush already!”
The waitress/bartender, and I was realizing now probable owner, had stuck her head around the corner. She saw us pointing pistols at two men bleeding on her floor, and one really obviously dead body, and then she ducked back down. I hoped she was dialing 911, not preparing to hang a shotgun around the corner to blast us.
“Don’t worry,” I shouted in her direction. “You’re safe. We’re the good guys. Everything is under control.” Even if she believed me, she probably wasn’t thinking I was that good of a tipper anymore.
After Milo had disarmed the bikers, he had gotten his phone out. “Hey, Eddings…Yeah. It’s Milo. Sorry to bug you again, but since we’re not supposed to be here, would you mind coming down and collecting the PUFF on a…” He looked at the monster. “Huh. I’m not actually sure, but Owen killed it with a soda pop…No…Really.”
The Las Vegas team had all the right contacts with the local PD to handle supernatural business, and they could get all this sorted out. The necromancers would get turned over to the MCB for questioning. As far as the government would be concerned, it would be from MHI Las Vegas, and my guys would have had nothing to do with this.
What was the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition doing here anyway? Baldy was passed out, so I squatted down next to Beardly. I checked his neck, sure enough, he was wearing one of those necklaces with an amulet of their old—now blown to smithereens—squid god on it. I knew from one particularly awful near death experience that the second he gave away too much about the Condition, it would choke him to death, and then he’d reanimate as a zombie.
“Listen carefully, asshole. I’m only going to ask this once. I know you work for Lucinda Hood. Who does the Condition worship now?”
“The Dread Overlord sees all!
“Your Dread Overlord sees zip. He’s dead.”
“You’re lying! He grants us power you can’t even begin to—” I pistol whipped him upside his stupid cultist head, hard enough to knock him cold. The clunk was extremely satisfying.
“What’s that about?” Trip asked.
“Lucinda has her dad’s idiot cult believing their Great Old One is still alive. She’s got them doing Asag’s bidding and they don’t even know it.”
“The Condition attracts power hungry psychos. As long as their black magic keeps working, you think they’re going to get too theologically picky about who is actually answering their prayers?” As an actual religious person, doing unto others as he’d have done unto him, these whackadoodle psychopaths offended the hell out of Trip. “That’s a rhetorical question.”
I went back over to the booth, stepped over the foaming zombie, grabbed Kevin by his polo shirt, and hoisted him up so we were eye to eye. He appeared to be going into shock. That was probably a lot of sudden violence for a regular boring person to process. “Hey!” I snapped my fingers a couple of times in front of his nose. That briefly got him to focus on something other than the monster. “Back to negotiations. I want to revise my previous offer.”
“Up?” he asked hopefully.
I shook my head no.
He looked really dejected. “Okay, okay.” He reached into his pocket, then held up a little thumb drive. “Here. Just take it.”
“You had it on you?” I dropped him. “You are literally the worst blackmailer ever!”