Chapter Two

 

 

Jonah Malone was a gangster. Or a mobster. Probably a whole lot of words that ended in “er”. He had clawed his way to the top, and then discovered that he didn't actually have a head for business. All of his enterprises were failing, not just the one MacLaine had purchased, and Jonah was reverting to his old thug ways to handle the frustration.

It had been a simple thing to schedule an appointment to see him. I simply sang to the receptionist over the phone, and she found a spot for me that very day. Then I walked into Jonah Malone's office, closed the door, and sang to him. In five minutes, he had completely forgotten why he wanted to kill MacLaine. He also decided to sell off his remaining businesses, and get out while he could. Perhaps meditate more. I figured why not help improve the guy while I'm messing with his head?

I walked out feeling relaxed, and satisfied with a job well done. I had video taped Jonah's “change of heart”, and sent it to Cer, who would pass it along to MacLaine as confirmation. Within ten minutes, MacLaine had transferred my payment into my account. I could finally go home. Maybe I'd have a Mai Tai on the plane as a special treat. Hell, maybe I'd have two.

I was on the way to the airport, when Cerberus called.

“Got another one for you, El,” Cerberus didn't bother with a greeting.

“I'm tired and cold, Cer,” I sighed. “Give it to someone else. I'm going home.”

“No one else can handle this. It's bad.”

“How bad?”

“Blooder army bad.”

“That's pretty fucking bad,” I made a face at the phone.

“Yes.”

“Fuck.”

“Yes.”

“Whose army?” I asked.

“Some guy named Lincoln,” Cerberus' voice had a shrug in it.

“Like the president?”

“Yep,” he didn't offer anymore info.

“Where is this army going? What do they want? Who's the client?” I huffed. “You wanna give me anything without me pulling your fucking canines to get it?”

“Whoa, easy now,” Cer chuckled, “you're turning me on, Elaria, sweetheart. You wanna stop in Denver, and make good on some of your promises? We can fly to Kansas together after your failed attempts at pulling my pearly whites.”

“Kansas?!” I nearly screeched, causing my driver to look back at me in concern. “It's fine. I'm fine,” I told the driver. To Cer, I said, “I'm not going to Kansas. Who do you think I am? Dorothy?”

“You'd look cute in a little gingham dress,” he offered.

“The only way you'd get me in gingham is if you put on a collar and let me call you Toto,” I shot back.

“For you, baby? Anytime.”

“Great,” I rolled my eyes, “now we have our next couple's costume planned.”

“No, really,” I could hear Cerberus smirk. “I look good in a collar.”

Cerberus and I had been playing this mating game since we met, back when I was sixteen, and we'd never concluded it. Part of me wanted to see if he was as good as he implied, but the other part of me knew our friendship was worth too much to risk it. Plus, we did business together, and everyone knows that saying about mixing business with Percocet. Or something like that.

“Look,” Cerberus got serious. “The guy is an old friend of mine. He's a blooder, a gheara, but he keeps his people in line, and they don't cause any trouble. He's one of the good ones.”

“I don't know about a blooder being good, but I'll believe the bit about him keeping his people in line,” I chuckled. “It's not like you hear a lot of vampire stories originating in Kansas. I didn't even know that Kansas had a Beneath. I thought they'd all flown away to Oz.”

“Banning's a tough one. He fought his way out of Europe, and now the fuckers are coming for him,” Cerberus didn't even acknowledge my jokes on the Beneath, aka the paranormal community. Which he knew irritated me. I put effort into my comedy, the least he could do was acknowledge it.

“Lincoln doesn't sound European,” I noted dryly.

“He's not,” Cer finally laughed. “He's a local hire. Mercenary.”

“Ah,” now that I could relate to. “So the guy is just doing a job. I can't hold that against him.”

“Yeah, but he contracts with the Falca all the time. Those elitist bastards wouldn't even bother to come to America, and kill Banning themselves,” Cer huffed. “Lincoln, what kind of stupid merc name is that?”

“So what do you want me to do?” I rolled my eyes, something I did a lot when I talked to Cer. He had a thing about names, especially professional ones, and was always going on about them. And the fact that I didn't have one.

“Ma'am? We're here,” the cabby called back to me.

“Hold on, Cer,” I stuffed my phone into my purse, and pulled out some cash for the driver. I hurried out of the cab, and over to a semi-secluded bench, then pulled out the phone again. “You there?”

“Why do you always shove your phone in your purse when you put me on hold?” Cerberus grumbled. “Just press the fucking hold button. You think I like listening to all your lady loot knocking against the mic?”

“I'm going to hang up,” I threatened.

“Fine,” he growled. “I can get you ten million for the job.”

I nearly dropped the phone. Ten million was twice my assassination fee. But then I thought about it. An assassination was one person, and Cerberus was asking me to kill... wait, how many blooders was he asking me to kill?

“How big is this army?” I asked.

“I'm not sure,” he muttered.

“How big, Cer?”

“Big enough that a gheara blooder can't handle it with his entire gura backing him,” Cerberus snapped.

Blooder, as I mentioned before, is the correct appellation for a vampire. Kind of obvious, I know, but that's how those names usually came about. I mean look at my race, the spellsingers. Well duh. But the word gheara was a little more interesting. It was Romanian for “fang”, and it indicated that this particular blooder was a big deal, akin to a king, maybe even bigger than that. There were usually hundreds of blooders in a single gura; that's the group of vampires who kiss the gheara's pale patootie. In fact, most people call them a kiss, but the blooders don't like that. Probably because of the ass-kissing thing. The polite term is gura, which is yet another Romanian word, meaning “mouth”. Then there was the Falca, which were the elite blooders who controlled everything in the blooder world. Falca meant “jaw” in Romanian. Yeah, I guess all the names were obvious, they just sounded less so in another language.

Anyway, if this guy had an entire gura looking after him, and Cerberus still couldn't help him without me, then there must be a whole lot of mercenary blooders coming after Cer's friend. Crowds were tough, it was much easier to weave a spell around a single mind. To alter the free will of thousands of people at once was nearly impossible. So I would probably have to go another route. I could sing a spell to affect the environment, and attack them physically, leaving them their free wills. Or I could enchant a few of them at a time, and force those to attack the others. Possibly even a combination of both. It would be exhausting, and probably take me multiple songs to complete. I wasn't even sure I could do it.

“Ten million per song,” I said to Cerberus.

“What?!” Cer shouted into the phone.

“An assassination usually takes a few lines, half a song at most,” I explained my reasoning. I never arbitrarily picked a price. “And I charge five mil for a kill. So ten million for an entire song is a bargain, especially when you'll be wanting me to kill hundreds, possibly even thousands, of blooders. You know I'll need to sing more than one song to take out an army, so your friend can pay per song. If it gets too expensive, he can tell me to stop singing, and handle the survivors with his gura.”

“Gods damn you, Elaria,” Cerberus snarled. “You have the mind of Archimedes and the cold calculation of Hades himself.”

“Thank you,” I said primly. “But you know as well as I that you were trying to dick me over on this one, Cerberus, and I'm not happy about that.”

“He's a friend, El,” he sighed.

“Yeah, that's why I'm letting you slide,” I acknowledged.

You'd think immortals would end up having tons of friends, what with our extensive lifetimes. But it's actually the opposite. When you live as long as we do, you end up breaking most bonds. Family is usually the exception, but even they can drive you crazy enough to make you avoid them for a few decades. When you form a friendship that lasts, like mine and Cer's, it means something.

“So, are you meeting me in Kansas?” I finally asked him.

“You'll do it?” Cerberus asked with a measure of surprise.

“Of course I'll do it,” I rolled my eyes. Again. “Any friend of yours, and all that heroine bullshit.”

“Thanks, El,” he said sincerely.

“Of course,” I said just as sincerely. “Now, where in Kansas am I going?”

“Head to Lawrence,” Cer said. “Check into the Springhill Suites, it's one of the nicer hotels there. A Marriott.”

“Well as long as I can stay at a Marriott,” I teased.

“I'll book a room for you,” he promised. “Under your usual alias.”

“Florence Nightingale,” I agreed. “Perfect.”

“And I'll come and get you after I arrive.”

“Alright,” I agreed. “See you in Kansas, Toto.”

“Bring your sexy red heels, Dorothy. I'll pack my collar,” Cer laughed as he hung up.