this.” Virginia handed over the card.
Jace frowned as he read the back of the business card. He flipped it to read the front where a logo with a red octopus gripping a ship’s wheel was embossed on the luxurious cream.
“ Says she went to the club house of the Sea Wolves. Not us. You got the wrong place, Snookums.”
Snookums ? “I thought you were the Sea Wolves?”
“ Nope.”
Car doors slammed and two men walked in, ducking under the mostly open door, shoving it up higher. Though both were tall, one was a head higher than the other, and wider too. His boots were... They were... Virginia peered. The concrete seemed to sink around the boots.
Light streamed in past them like it had a contract to announce the arrival of a pair of avenging archangels. Except they didn ’t have wings and one of them, the biggest one, looked as if he’d fallen off the back of a truck, face first. And then someone had stapled a new wire-brush hairstyle on his scalp. If they were archangels, Heaven needed a new personnel department.
“ Who the fuck are you?” someone yelled over the sound of the truck engine. “Rude fuckers. Ever heard of knocking?”
“ I am Karl Thulhu,” the first, shorter one, drawled in bass mode, his voice assertive yet relaxed. “This is my helper, Dangerous Bob.”
Though he didn ’t in any way gesture at the big man beside him, she knew who he meant since Dangerous Bob had growled, low and menacing, and not at all like he meant to sell cookies or break into song about daisies or tulips...or anything to do with being happy.
“ Dangerous Bob?” someone jeered.
“ You don’t want to know. He tones it down so he can fit into polite society.” Karl smiled.
With the brightness of the light, she couldn ’t see his eyes but the smile was awesomely nasty. His voice was suave and educated but with a hard edge – he’d cut you without hesitation with an antique silver knife.
Dangerous Bob growled again, patently agreeing.
“So. You’re such nice people. I can see that. Now that we’ve introduced ourselves, it’s your turn.”
The bikers ’ hands tightened on the baseball bats and wrenches they clutched. A few drew knives.
“ Twats.” Jace chuckled, drawing Virginia’s attention back to him. “You said Sea Wolves. You see any ocean round here? A motor cycle club called that?”
“ Not interested in playing nice? Listen, Furry Wolves!” Karl Thulhu said, just loud enough to be heard over the idling engine. “You’ve stolen my merchandise! And if there’s one thing you don’t do, it’s steal from me.”
“ You’re the Furry Wolves?” Virginia couldn’t help sniggering.
Jace bent and picked a tire lever off the floor, the metal scraping on the concrete. Then he rose to stare at the two men. “You better go, girl. Things are about to get fucked up. Ain’t no one claims off the Wolves.”
A fight was going down.
“You want some?” A Furry Wolf member challenged, tapping a piece of lead pipe in his hand.
“ Some what?” Karl Thulhu asked.
The entire garage full of Furry Wolves surged toward him and Dangerous Bob.
Chapter 2
The headlights went out, the engine stopped, then the garage lights also died. Blackness reigned. Screams and thuds proliferated. Feet scuffled. Metal clanged.
Quiet, except for the ticking of a cooling engine. Moans. Then lightning flashed from a storm that hadn’t been in the vicinity a moment before. In the eerie and very convenient light, she caught a glimpse of a tableau – a monstrous beast towered above the bodies of the bikers, flailing at them with its terrible long arm things. The room darkened again.
What was the name of those long arm thingies?
Started with T.
Virginia tsked. Nope, she couldn’t remember.
After a few more thuds and cracks that echoed off the concrete, the moaning ceased.
Dark. Quiet. It was black as midnight at the bottom of a very black hole in the ground, after someone has filled it in. Heavy, slapping
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