Swarm of Fire Read online

“Let’s get up there,” I said aloud and then started pushing through the crowd. “If nothing else, we can get a bead on what we’re dealing with.”

  “Watch it, pal,” said a burly guy who was wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

  “Sorry,” I replied, giving him a fake smile.

  I then pulled out my wallet and flipped my badge at a security guard who was watching me.

  His eyes lit up, telling me he was more than happy to see members of the Las Vegas PPD arrive.

  While most of the people who worked at the casinos were normals, they were in-the-know regarding supernaturals. This was necessary because a lot of the owners and people in high positions were supers. Plus, there were special areas in each casino where supers could hang out and do stuff without the worry of being spotted by normals. Well, those who were not in-the-know, anyway.

  The guard snagged a Vegas cop by the arm and pointed at me.

  In turn, the cop started clearing a path for us until we got to the front where the three massive apes were standing.

  They were all ridiculously tall, coming in at around eight to nine feet in height. The first one had brown hair, a sunken forehead, and big round eyes. I looked at his feet and found that they were ginormous, which I supposed made sense. The second one was covered in white fur, had a pinkish face, and large blue eyes. It also had a nice row of teeth that it was busily showing the crowd. The last one was more hunched over. It had matted brown and black hair that looked somewhat sticky. They all smelled horrible, but I had a feeling that the last one in line was the cause of the majority of fumes.

  “Officers,” I said with a nod to the small group of cops and guards, “I’m Chief Ian Dex and this is Officer Rachel Cress. What have we got here?”

  “Three apes,” said the security guard while pointing.

  “Thank you,” I replied evenly. “Have they injured anyone?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” the guard replied, “but they’ve been roaring at people a lot and putting the scare into them.”

  I nodded at him as Rachel stepped over and stood just out of arm’s reach of the brown one. It growled at her as its face creased angrily. Rachel didn’t seem bothered.

  “Have you tried anything to get them to leave?” I asked.

  Honestly, I was paying more attention to the fact that I may have to jump in and help Rachel at any moment.

  “Like what?” said one of the cops. “Those things are huge. We put in a call to your office and have been waiting for you to arrive ever since. This is your jurisdiction, pal. Not ours. We’re doing all we can to keep people back from these things.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, pushing past them and over to Rachel. “Those are some big apes.”

  “Yep.”

  “Lydia,” I said through the connector, “has Paula Rose been notified about this yet?”

  Paula was the head of The Spin, a company who had the unfortunate job of putting a public relations spin on any supernatural activity that affected the normal populace. Basically, she spun the line that there were constantly new shows and attractions happening in Vegas all the time. She rather despised that incessant copout, but now and then she’d land a nice storyline that put extra coin in her pocket.

  But Paula was also one of my ex-girlfriends, and seeing her wasn’t exactly a highlight for me. She harbored a fair bit of resentment toward me since I’d broken up with her. In my defense, it was either I broke up with her or I cheated on her. Again, I’m not the cheating type.

  “No, lover,” Lydia answered. “I only contact her when you tell me it’s okay.”

  “Please put in a call,” I said with some effort. “She’s going to need to see this.”

  Chapter 4

  My first thought was just to leave the beasts alone. I mean, who knows, maybe they were just here to play some slots.

  Okay, even I thought that was a stupid thought.

  But the fact was that they weren’t actually harming anyone. They were growling and swiping, but nobody had been hurt yet. Terrorizing, sure, but not attacking. For all I knew, this was some crazy promotional stunt done by an up-and-coming magician or something.

  And that’s when a drunk college kid decided to test the waters.

  He darted past me and Rachel, jumped up and swung at the abominable snowman, missed, and ended up getting backhanded, which sent him flying into the crowd.

  Now, to be fair, the kid had it coming. I would have backhanded him too.

  Unfortunately, his little stunt caused the beasties to take a menacing step forward while their growls increased and their fangs became more pronounced.

  I wasn’t a fan of blowing away naughties in front of a bunch of normals, but sometimes you had to do what you had to do. Besides, this was the kind of thing Paula Rose was paid to deal with. We couldn’t keep the normals in the dark all of the time, sadly.

  I whipped out my .50 caliber Desert Eagle handgun, which I lovingly named “Boomy,” and pointed it at the chest of Bigfoot. Rachel’s hands were aglow, letting me know her magic was building up and ready to be unleashed.

  “Guys,” I said through the connector to the rest of my crew, “I know you’re in the middle of stopping vampires from feeding on people at the Old Strip, but I just wanted to let you know that these massive apes have decided to take things to the next level.”

  “Wrapped up the vampires, Chief,” Jasmine replied. “We’ll be over as soon as we can.”

  “I’m nearby,” Officer Serena Buchanan, our forensics and part-time healer announced. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Great.”

  Based on the size of these things we were facing, having a little of her healing power about now would be great. Every branch of the PPD had at least one healer on board. They took a different track than standard officers so they could spend less time causing harm and more time helping those who were harmed. They were also good at creating healing and energy potions. Needless to say, we were highly protective of officers like Serena.

  With a roar, Bigfoot decided to be the first to attack. He leaped forward with the grace of an animal that at that size he really shouldn’t have. It was actually somewhat mesmerizing to the point of being beautiful.

  But I shot him anyway.

  The breaker bullet knocked a massive hole directly through his chest, throwing scatterings of material everywhere.

  He staggered and put his hand to his chest while giving me a look of utter shock. Then his brow tightened and the anger in his eyes intensified. It wasn’t a fun experience to be the focus of his stare.

  When he pulled his hand away from his chest, I saw that the hole had completely closed up.

  “What the shit?” I screeched as the crash of ice lightning struck the abominable snowman directly on top of his head, causing me to leap. “Damn it, Rachel! Can you warn me before you do that?”

  “Nope.”

  Another bolt struck Bigfoot and ricocheted over to hit the swamp ape.

  All three of them roared in response and I unloaded mayhem at them.

  “Shoot!” I screamed at the cops, who were transfixed at the scene before them. “Fire your weapons, you fucking idiots!”

  Within seconds, bullets were zipping into the apes like mad.

  They were growling, yelping, slapping at their flesh, and doing all they could to dodge our onslaught.

  The crowd was getting into things, cheering and whistling. To them, this was probably the best show they’d seen since getting here. Honestly, if I had been in their shoes, I would have thought this was pretty incredible, too. But being that I wasn’t in their shoes, I was shaking like a leaf.

  “What the hell are these things?” I said to Rachel through the connector.

  “No idea,” she replied. “Immortal Bigfoots is my guess.”

  “Bigfoots?” I said between magazine exchanges. “Wouldn’t that be Bigfeet?”

  “Doubt it.”

  “Guys,” Serena called out, “I’m here. What can I do?”

 
I glanced over and saw her amazing body bouncing flawlessly as she ran up the sidewalk. She was a vampire who had all the right curves. Honestly, even the succubus community envied the hotness of Serena Buchanan.

  That made me wonder if Bigfoot and his pals thought vampire chicks were hot.

  Okay, another dumb thought.

  “I’m not sure,” I replied. “These things are healing pretty damn quick, and I don’t know why.”

  “What are you hitting them with, Rachel?”

  “Ice bolts,” Rachel answered after unleashing another. “I want to try ice storms, but there are too many people here.”

  “And we’ve put a buttload of bullets into them since the shit hit the fan,” I chimed in. “Blows a hole right through them and it closes back up like it’s nothing.”

  Serena moved in a wide arc around the apes as we continued shooting at them. She was clearly trying to stay out of the line of fire, but it looked like she was also planning to get pretty near to the damn things.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, worried for her safety.

  “I have to see what they’re made of.”

  I scoffed at her. “Sorry?”

  Serena ignored the question and dived to the ground behind the creatures. She scooped up something before crawling backward, away from them. Then she began studying whatever she’d picked up as we continued blasting away. At one point it looked like she even tasted it.

  Ew.

  “This is pixie dust,” Serena yelped as her head snapped up. “These things aren’t real.”

  Chapter 5

  Bigfoot caught me on the shoulder with a vicious swipe, throwing me to the ground while ripping a hole in my suit.

  Damn it.

  “Sure as fuck seem real,” I said while firing up at the monster from my back. “They seem very real.”

  “You need to melt the dust, Rachel,” Serena stated. “Ice isn’t going to work. Use heat lightning.”

  “Right,” Rachel replied. “Cover me!”

  I scrambled back up and started firing Boomy with deadly accuracy. Well, it would have been deadly against things that didn’t just heal up like it was nothing. Obviously the bullets were still hurting them, but there was no killing these bastards with projectiles.

  Rachel’s hands started glowing bright red as a ball of flame formed. She unleashed it at the swamp ape and it bellowed a blood-curdling scream that nearly made me shit myself. Its right arm and part of its torso looked like it had turned into glass.

  The other beasties saw this and immediately went after Rachel.

  “Oh fuck,” she choked aloud.

  I jumped straight up and to the side until all three ape heads were in a perfect line from my vantage point. The breaker bullet launched from Boomy and ripped through each skull in line, and then cracked against the wall on the outside of the casino.

  The apes wailed and grabbed at their heads, giving Rachel enough time to launch a spray of fire at their legs, turning them to glass and freezing them in place.

  That should have done the job, but the damn things started doing something neither of us could have expected. They took hunks of their own flesh—or maybe dust?—and began sprinkling it over the glass on their legs. The glass began turning back into skin, or whatever the hell it was.

  “Wow,” said Rachel with a shocked look that I was wearing as well. “Didn’t expect that.”

  “Hit their hands and feet,” suggested Serena. “If they can’t pull their own bodies apart, they can’t sprinkle the pixie dust.”

  Rachel nodded and a fire ball showed up in her hand in a flash.

  Unfortunately, the abominable snowman, who seemed to be the brains of this outfit, smacked her arm just before she launched the attack. The fire ball went straight up toward the clouds and exploded like a nice round of fireworks.

  This elicited an “Oooooh” and “Ahhhhh” sequence from the crowd.

  Mr. Abominable and the two other apes made the mistake of enjoying the show, too, though. Clearly they found the pretty lights to be just as fascinating as the drunks surrounding us did.

  Their mental lapse gave Rachel the time to build up another stream of fire and strike their collective hands with it.

  The apes screeched.

  Bigfoot kicked me in the chest hard enough that Boomy went flying up in the air and I went barreling back toward the crowd. It hurt my chest, but the guy in the Hawaiian shirt who’d yelled at me earlier broke my fall. Apparently, he’d pushed to the front of the crowd for a better view of the show. Based on how his eyes had rolled up in his head at that moment, I guessed he was watching little birdies instead.

  I shook my head and looked over to see that Rachel was also lying in a heap by the crowd.

  “All right, you fuckers,” I hissed under my breath. “It’s one thing to kick me about, but it’s quite another to mess with my girl.”

  As rage welled up inside me, I launched myself at the beasts. I punched, kicked, chopped, rolled, and even head-butted. But all I had accomplished was tiring myself out. The apes didn’t seem affected by it at all.

  In fact, Mr. Abominable even chuckled a bit before grabbing me by the neck and throwing me at the side of Harrah’s.

  “Ouch,” I said as I finally came to rest on the ground, certain that my head was bleeding.

  I’d heal.

  “We’ve got you covered,” came the welcome voice of Jasmine as a ball of fire flew over the crowd and struck the abominable snowman square in the chest.

  Another flaming orb smacked Bigfoot as well.

  All the cops and security guards hit the ground to protect themselves from the incoming flames. The crowd was far enough back not to be affected, and my mages were very good at avoiding normals with their spells. Most of the time anyway.

  It only took a few more seconds before Griff, Rachel, and Jasmine had turned these beasts completely into glass.

  The crowd was silenced as everyone got back up to look at the apes in their new form.

  “Now what, Serena?” I said while dragging myself back to my feet.

  “Shoot them.”

  I frowned at her, but she nodded her encouragement.

  I grunted. “Okay.”

  Like someone who’d had far more than his share of booze, I stumbled over to Boomy and picked him up.

  Then I pointed at Bigfoot’s glass head and pulled the trigger.

  It shattered into a million pieces the moment the breaker bullet impacted.

  The crowd went nuts.

  Frankly, it had looked pretty sweet, and I could only imagine them seeing me as the star of this show, though my mages probably appeared pretty badass while they were firing off magical balls of death.

  My head began to clear.

  “Hey, guys,” I said to Officers Felicia Logan and Chuck Taylor, “what say we three use our Desert Eagles on these things to add a little flair?”

  They both glanced at me and then smirked.

  We looked like the Three Amigos as we shot the living crap out of the massive glass figurines in front of us.

  When it was all said and done, the crowd was applauding like mad.

  We were a hit.

  A major hit.

  So this was what it felt like to be on stage at one of the shows here in Vegas. Well, one of the good shows anyway.

  It was definitely something I could get used to.

  With a wink toward the crowd, I spun Boomy and stuck him back in his holster.

  “Show-off,” said Rachel with a snort.

  “Damn straight,” I replied, my smile beaming bright enough that the moon could have taken a holiday. “Damn straight.”

  Right when my smugness was at full bloom, I heard the sound of a golf clap. It was loud, slow, mocking, and grating on the ears.

  I turned toward the sound and found the five-foot-two normal known as Paula Rose.

  “Look, everyone,” I mumbled, “Paula’s here. Yay.”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” sh
e asked as the crowd continued cheering. “These people have no idea what’s just happened, you freaking idiot.”

  I almost got a word out when Rachel stepped up next to me, arms crossed, and stared down at Paula.

  “Call him an idiot again,” Rachel said in a threateningly sweet voice. “I dare you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We’re a couple again, Paula,” I said, using my hand to motion back and forth between me and Rachel. “You know how she gets a little protective?”

  “I didn’t know,” Paula replied, staring daggers at Rachel, “and I don’t appreciate the threat, Officer Cress.”

  Fact was that if Rachel laid a finger on Paula, she’d end up in a Netherworld jail cell, lose her badge, and have to go through Deep Reintegration. Paula, on the other hand, would end up eating through a tube for the rest of her life.

  Not worth it.

  “Okay, you two,” I said, stepping between them, “there’s no point in fighting over this. Rachel, I’m good here.”

  She gave me a dirty look, rolled her eyes, and then stormed away.

  Fun.

  “Paula,” I started, bringing her attention back to me, “you’ve got a gold mine here.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Look at this crowd. They’re so into this that I’m guessing we’ll be signing autographs.”

  That’d be cool.

  “But this was real, Ian,” she scolded, hands on hips and everything.

  “And they don’t know that.”

  She went to retaliate, but she stopped. I could see the wheels were churning. You could say whatever you wanted about Paula Rose, but you’d be hard pressed to prove she was lacking a nose for business.

  “So…hmmm.”

  “Think about it,” I ventured. “You hire on a few pixies to build stuff like this, get a couple of mages to play the part, and pick up some actors within the supernatural community to fire guns.” I held up a warning finger. “Just make sure they’re using rubber bullets or something.”

  She was nodding slowly. “We could charge casinos for the draw. We’d make a killing.” Then she sighed and gave me a sly look. “Honestly, I caught the end of the little ‘show’ you did here. You and the other PPD officers were amazing.”