She pointed to Meinie.
“No, I think I’ve got this one handled. I actually needed you to help fry a bigger fish.” Keeping an eye on Veronica’s wannabe assassin, I pulled the business card out that Poe had given me and handed it to her. She looked it over. “What are the addresses for?”
“Those are a few of Asmoday’s local interests. I’m hoping you’ll look after them. I’d hate to see anything happen. You know, like a raging inferno or an accidental carpet-bombing.”
“You think he’s at one of them?” She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of raining down her righteousness on Asmoday.
“I doubt it, but if you make a big enough mess, he might pay a visit.”
“Ah, you’re looking to draw him out.”
I nodded. “Either him or one of his cohorts, Page 159 preferably one from on high. If they’re busy protecting his interests, they aren’t off destroying the world.”
“That’s a simplistic presumption.”
“Simple is what I do best. Besides, I’m not choking all my chickens in one basket.”
Scarlett looked at me like she didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended. I could tell she was leaning toward the latter.
“Just pay a visit to those addresses and let me know what happens. I’ll handle the rest. Oh, and do me another favor.”
She raised her eyebrow.
“Can you take those things with you?” I pointed to the collection of weapons scattered amongst the bodies. “I don’t have time to stash them somewhere safe.”
She nodded and scooped them up in a hurry. Not one to resist the opportunity to blow something up, Scarlett waved and shot up out of the alley, leaving me alone with Meinie.
He sat there with wide eyes as he watched the golden trail of her passage fade away.
“Come on. We’ve got places to go and succubi to see.”
He shook his head, sweat pasting his greasy hair to his face. “I can’t do that. She’ll kill me, man.”
“You ever see the movie Deliverance?” His eyes grew wide. Apparently he had. “If you don’t get up and Page 160 move your ass little piggy, I’m gonna whip out my banjo and make you squeal, you feel me?”
He raised his hands in surrender. “I’ll take you, man. I’ll take you.”
“Good choice.”
I grabbed his healthy arm and hauled him to his feet. Twisting it behind his back, I dragged him to the van and shoved him inside. I hopped in the back and closed the door, settling in. To be sure I had his cooperation I jammed my gun against the driver’s seat hard enough so he could feel it through the padding.
“Drive.”
With a resigned sigh, he started the van and drove off. Good thing for him it was an automatic. I leaned back in my seat and stared out the window. It had been a long time since I’d seen Veronica and it was obvious she wasn’t taking the divorce well. I wasn’t looking forward to the reunion, but if she could do what I thought she could, it would be worth the trip. Besides, I might even get laid.
‘Till Death Do Us Part
“This is as far as I go, man,” Meinie told me as he brought the van to a stop near a seedy strip of No-Tell Motels at the south end of Old Town. “She’s in room 112, bottom floor near the ice machine.”
“You’d better not be lying to me.”
“I’m not, I promise. I’m done with it, dude.”
That wasn’t possible, but I didn’t bother to tell him that. Once a succubus got her claws in a guy, he was as good as dead. What she had to offer was more addictive than any drug imaginable. I don’t care how good a woman was in bed, the things Veronica could do would put the best lay to shame. The feelings she evoked with just a whisper could curl your toes and make your ears wiggle. She could make a heterosexual man listen to Clay Aiken and like it. I was starting to get aroused just thinking about it; Veronica, not Clay, just so we’re clear“Fine, but I swear if I ever see you again, you’ll spend your last few moments singing soprano. You get me?”
He nodded enthusiastically.
I ground my gun into the back of his seat once more out of spite and slid the door open. I hopped out and looked toward the hotel. I felt my chest grow tight as I thought about seeing Veronica again. There was a Page 162 lot of water that had passed under that bridge and most of it smelled like raw sewage. I wasn’t sure I was up to jumping back into it, however temporary the swim was. Meinie, not waiting to see how things turned out, gunned the van and took off, squealing the wheels as he took the corner way too fast. He was gone in a flash. He was the smart one, apparently. No longer concerned with him, I headed off toward the hotel. I figured Meinie might give Veronica a heads up I was coming, but I didn’t care at that point. If she still wanted me dead, she’d have to do it herself. I slipped around the side of the building and approached her room. Not giving myself time to get nervous, I knocked on the door. I did it lightly to avoid it sounding like a cop knock. It must have worked. The door swung open and Veronica stared out at me, her eyes wide with surprise. She looked even better than I remembered.
She had on a pair of black biker boots that ran to the calves of her painted-on blue jeans, which hugged her in all the right spots. She also wore a tight, wifebeater T-shirt, which barely contained her bra-less chest. The sight of which got my blood to flowin’. My eyes roamed up her body, taking it all in, much to my libido’s delight.
Her taught arms rippled with lean muscle beneath the colored lines of extensive tattooing that covered their entirety. The brilliant colors and
Asian-themed artwork ended at her collarbones where her long neck led up to her shocked face. Her big blue eyes stared at me from above her scrunched button nose, her head framed in a halo of short, wild black hair. The look of surprise quickly vanished to be replaced by the hard lines of her fury.
“Frank. You son of a bitch,” she growled. Before I could open my mouth to defend my mother, she clocked me. Throwing a sneaky uppercut, she caught me flush on the chin. I heard my teeth clack together as my head whipped back, knocking me off balance. I tumbled into the parking lot, fireworks exploding in front of my eyes. Face to the asphalt, I mumbled an incoherent complaint as a thin stream of my blood trickled from my mouth and pooled beneath me. I’d forgotten how hard she could hit. I rolled over to talk just as her boot crashed into my ribs. I felt my breath whoosh from my lungs as I slid back across the lot a few feet, scraping away layers of skin. I instinctively curled up to protect myself from further injury, but kept my eyes on her. I wanted to see the next shot coming.
“I’ll kill you!” she shouted. I’m not sure whether it was a good thing no one was around to witness her kicking my ass. Not that it would matter much. In Old Town, people tended to ignore everything that didn’t involve them, or they couldn’t profit from. I wasn’t gonna get any help from the locals.
A few giggles maybe, but no assistance. Furious, she kicked me again, her boot slamming into my arms. While it stung, it didn’t do much damage. I caught my breath as she kicked again. This time, I grabbed her leg and twisted. She went down, rolling away from me as I jumped to my feet.
“Come on now, can’t we discuss this like adults?”
She growled low in her throat and flung herself at me again. “I guess not.”
She came at me like she intended to tackle me. I let her close, then just as her shoulder connected with my stomach, I wrapped my arms around her waist and lifted. I spun sideways and let her go, using her momentum to throw her into the ice machine. She let out a grunt as she slammed into it, the sound drowned out by the crash of falling ice, knocked free inside. She righted herself and glared at me, her eyes sparkling with rage.
“Look, I don’t want to fight.”
She ignored me and stalked forward, her hands raised like a boxer. I sighed, shifting my own stance, resigned to the fact we weren’t gonna work our differences out peacefully. I really didn’t want to fight her. It’s not like I was all that concerned about hitting a woman, I am part devil after all, but I always had a hard time hurting those I cared for. For all our problems, I couldn’t help but think of the good times we’d shared. Admittedly, most of them involved her face shoved into a pillow, but that’s beside the point. They were good times, for me at least.
She clearly didn’t feel the same way. She closed and threw a left. I moved my right to defend against it and caught a kick to the liver instead. I stumbled back with a hiss, angry at myself for falling for her feint. She’d gotten better. That didn’t bode well. She’d always been a scrapper, but she’d been sloppy, undisciplined. It wasn’t something she really needed to learn considering her feminine charms ensured she had an army of men to do her dirty work for her. The fact she had taken the time to learn how to fight properly meant my task here was going to be harder than I thought. What a surprise. Nothing was ever easy for me. Why should it start being so now?
