Page 27 (1/2)

GOING DOWN IN the speeding elevator, I pondered the fact that I’d grown up twenty to fifty e Film in the World

I’d expected it to be found, if ever, in sousta, just outside Wichita, Kansas?

Ureed I wouldn’t expect you to practically lay Snow in Wichita, either You sure got hyper once you resolved your supine position issues

We have so Metropolis was a teensy overexciting, and so was seeing that silver metal superwoman, even if the plot destroyed her at the end They always do that to independent wo to my navy chest Snow obviously couldn’t be trusted around owns His proble my very own ruby red slippers

You are so typical of the e, Irirly accessories

Even as I savored the recent, unexpected triuray wool cloak of conscience, a descending storret I’d been up in La-la Munchkinland, carried away by the Emerald City makeover

This was not an episode I could explain to Ric Or iven him some major compliments I let myself bask in those positives Even Snow had called Ric oadedbadly? And, orse, predicted more of the saet back to as happening on ground level Were the boys having any luck tracking El Demonio from WTCH? Did I want them to? He was the Boss of Bosses now and round floor and I strode out, the green foil bag swinging fro me around by it

"Not so fast, puta"

Puta? Maybe a bit uided sometimes, but hardly a prostitute

AsMy free hand, now accessorized at the wrist by a sawtooth silver cuff, slashed open his cheekbone

The man dropped my wrist to stanch the flood of blood, so I skittered down the yellow brick road for the safety of Ben Hassard’s office, only realizing as I crashed through the slightly open door that it was Siege Central

By the look of the unwelcoht Horror Show

A ed its spined tail back and forth over the floor in one corner, its red eyes gleareen ambiance

Ben Hassard slumped in his desk chair, his limbs bound to it by silver duct tape, a beaten, bloody parody of hiroup of squat, amphibian-faced men with pitted skin and totally black eyes prowled his office, every knuckle on their pudgy hands scraped bloody, theirin almost a communal hiss as they spied me

Certainly they weren’t zombies or any other unhumans, but they were even worse I’d seen this subhu taken away by small armies of international law enforce cartel inable tortures, offed whole innocent fas and acid baths

They were all looking at me now

Freshhhhh meat, Irma echoed h heels to a useless bier instead of away Tiosh, Ben," I breathed "A? So sorry"

All he could do was cough up blood, which I appeared to be too ditsy to see

"Say, Ben Got alooks good to go for the hotel opening" I gazed around, blinking vacantly "So these guys here are the new security crewvalets? Wow They really set the tone Speaking of ‘tone,’ I leftdestinations in here"

I scooped up my cell phone from the desk

On I babbled "And, Bensy, you promised, promised, promised to have this phone covered in Austrian crystals at the hotel shopping pro under a guest chair I cradled the phone to my cheek and eyed the screen "I’e from Ric read "W Goose chase Back ASAP"

"Look, this stupid phone won’t even work," I whined, punching ainst the phone screen’s keyboard like a deet off "Prisoners at EC" before one of the Reptilian Guard smacked the cell phone out of my hand to the floor

I blinked at them, mainly because they didn’t seem able to

"Twist-tie the stupid bitch," my abrupt personal phone operator barked

Two of the poisonous toads ju a bow before I was smashed to the floor with my wrists and ankles bound by wire cable

"Now," said one of the thugs, circling Ben "You’re gonna tell us who got the Augusta Theater goods the boss wanted"

The film? Metropolis? These bozos were after the film? Why?

Ben’s unresponsive eyes had rolled up in his head like a saint’s ascending to Heaven I hoped he was just unconscious, not dead

Half of me wanted to sic these creeps on the penthouse suite, where Snoas alone and rapt in his landht I also suspected Snow could unleash some nasty containuilt over Snoas full up for the et Ben and me out of this murderous mess To do that, I had to unravel why Torbellino wanted or needed the Metropolis film more than Snow

What would link Ric and his ancient enemy, El Demonio, to a rare filas empire?

Besides me?

UNFORTUNATELY, A FEMALE presence did not encourage the drug cartel thugs to restrain theht razors, though, could only produce bloody gurgles froet any answers that would satisfy their absent boss So, they were prihter to take their minds off El Demonio’s reaction to their failure I didn’t want Ben to die

I had few options, but at least I was being ignored I’d be safe until they decided to off witnesses, or play ga to lose here but time to act

So, I baaed softly Baaaa-irl

The chained chupacabra in the corner perked up

My, what a multibreed beastie it was seen close-up, a little like Barney the purple dinosaur if one wanted to put a soft and cuddly spin on it The leathery gray-green skin and the quills defining its spine and tail gave it a lizard-like quality, and its blunt-snouted and fanged face flaunted a black forked tongue Every exhalation broadcast the reek of sulfur Too on" a part of its pedigree? I gathered it would eat -distance Chupacabras were notorious for draining the blood of goats, and I was certainly tied up like a Judas one

I’ noises Snow one hour, a chupacabra the next Dolly and I have dual exhausts and aim to please Come on, Chupie, cohty lunge forward, straining the chain

Behind ibly

Bastards!

My low-key baas only spoke Chupacabra and I repeated them mindlessly, until the creature broke loose with a snap of its chain and a weird baying sound

That’s when I rolled under the knee hole in Hassard’s desk, pushing his chair toward the back wall, hearing the unleashedthe first responders in his path and sucking their blood with usto … a Dios, El Demonio’s henchmen …

My silver familiar shifted into a workers the heavy blade sawed through s

Still curled in the shelter of the desk’s knee hole, I rab the star-shaped rays of Ben’s desk chair base and spin it like a lazy Susan until his duct-taped ankles cale the rubbery tape The faed jaws right through

By the tied myself up to look over the desk, the once-captive chupacabra was ranging free and dining on drug cartel s pierced major arteries in their fat-solidified bodies as its black tongue sucked up the pooling blood like a straw

The fa off the bonds on Hassard’s wrists when the outside glassshattered Quicksilver leaped through to knock down the last retreating thug and run tochupacabra

I grabbed Quick’s collar

An instant later, Ric waded through the shards of broken glass to sweep us both to the back hile Tallgrass edged around chupacabra and victi desk chair back to our defensive position

The chupacabra celebrated its freedo every last drop it could fro sounds

The three conscious ainst a wall

Chupie straightened to scan red carnivore eyes in our direction And burped Full Slowly, it waddled to the broken glass panel to lad El Chupacabra drank its fill of El De over his friend, stanching the mass of bloody wounds with strips froet hirass said