Chapter 19
When the bullet hit me, I groaned. Even if your muscle tissue is dense enough to stop a bullet, it still hurts to get shot. Hurts something fierce.
I didn’t know what else to do, other than groan, so I slumped forward, landing face first on the table. Maybe if Gladrielle thought I was dead, she would hold up her end of the deal and let Stringbean and Frat Boy take her into custody.
If they locked her up, I wouldn’t have to worry about her throwing fireballs at me or anyone else. What’s more, it would give me a chance to talk to her, convince her that she wasn’t evil, convince her to come back from the dark side.
“All right,” Stringbean said. “I held up my end of the deal. I shot her. Now, it’s time for you to hold up your end of the deal and let us take you into custody.”
“You shot her,” Gladrielle said. “But you didn’t kill her. I can still hear her heart beating.”
“That’s because I didn’t shoot her in the heart. I shot her in the gut.”
“Why would you do that?”
“You shoot someone in the heart, they die instantly. What’s more, there’s practically no pain. Only a brief second. Gut shots on the other hand, they hurt, they hurt bad.”
“So, she’ll die slowly?”
“Unless someone calls for help. Now, are you going to come with us quietly, or do I have to shoot you in the gut too. Let you experience what it feels like first hand.”
“I’d like to watch her die,” Gladrielle said.
“That wasn’t our deal. Our deal was, I shoot the mermaid and you let us take you into custody.”
“I want to watch her die,” Gladrielle whined. She stomped her foot on the floor, like a recalcitrant child.
Stringbean slid out of his seat and pressed the barrel of his gun against the side of Gladrielle’s head. “You can either come with us, or I can put a bullet in your head. The choice is yours.”
“Everybody relax,” Frat Boy said, sliding out of his seat. “We’re cops.”
He must’ve pulled out his badge and held it up because the excited crowd quieted down. I could see Stringbean and Gladrielle out of the corner of my eye, but with my head on the table, I couldn’t see Frat Boy.
“And I told you,” Gladrielle said, anger creeping into her voice. “I want to watch the mermaid die.”
Stringbean and Gladrielle disappeared out of my view. That was followed by the sound of a scuffle. A second later, Stringbean’s head slammed onto the table next to mine. One of Gladrielle’s hands was holding him there, the other one was holding his thirty-eight, pressing the barrel of the gun against the back of Stringbean’s head.
Stringbean looked at me and mouthed the word, help.
I figured I better do something before Gladrielle put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger, so I sprung into action. I grabbed the gun Gladrielle was holding against Stringbean’s head and jerked it out of her hand. She was strong, stronger than your average human male, but she wasn’t strong enough to prevent me from ripping the gun out of her hand. One of the advantages of having such dense muscle tissue. Plus, I was using two hands while she was using one.
“He shot you,” Gladrielle said, stating the obvious.
I slid out of the booth and stood up. I shifted the gun to my right hand and pointed it at Gladrielle. I had no intention of shooting her, I was still hoping to bring her back from the dark side. I just thought if I pointed the gun at her, she might behave herself.
“He did shoot me.”
“Let me guess. The bullets in the gun are blanks.”
“The bullets are real,” Stringbean said, as he pulled himself off the table.
He pulled out his handcuffs and moved behind Gladrielle, intending to handcuff her. Gladrielle didn’t resist, she let Stringbean pull her hands behind her back and cuff them. She was more focused on trying to figure out why I wasn’t hurt.
“Then why isn’t she dying?”
“I have extremely dense muscle tissue,” I said. “Dense enough to stop a small to medium sized bullet. That’s why the water pressure that crushed the Count, didn’t hurt me.”
In retrospect, reminding Gladrielle what happened to the Count probably wasn’t a good idea. Her face turned red with anger and she snapped the steel cuffs as if they were made of paper. Then she moved toward me with another fireball in her hand.
Since I had no intention of using the gun on her, I tossed it underneath the table where I had been sitting. I would’ve tossed it to Stringbean, but he would’ve just shot Gladrielle.
I also had no intention of getting hit with another fireball, so I grabbed the nearest table that wasn’t bolted to the floor and picked it up. Then I held it in front of me like a shield, just in time to deflect the beach ball sized fireball that Gladrielle threw at me.
For his part, Frat Boy took refuge behind me. Stringbean remained where he was, standing just off to the side. However, he didn’t remain passive. He pulled an electric stunner out of his pocket and pointed it at Gladrielle. I barely had time to yell no, before he fired it at her.
Two wires shot out and hit Gladrielle in the stomach. It was enough electricity to bring down a small gorilla, but then Gladrielle wasn’t a small gorilla, she was an elf that possessed the ability to control energy, including electricity.
She glared at the two wires in her stomach, then she glared at Stringbean. A second later the electricity headed back the way it came, traveling along the wires and back into the stunner, which exploded in Stringbean’s hands and knocked him off his feet.
I was still holding the table in front of me, protecting Frat Boy and myself from Gladrielle’s fireballs. Which I have to admit, I was getting tired of ducking. Every time, I ran into her, she ended up throwing fireballs at me.
I figured it was time I do something about that, so I reached out with my mind, to the water that made up over sixty percent of Gladrielle’s body. Then I ordered that water to cool, not freeze, just cool a couple of degrees, just enough to stop Gladrielle from heaving fireballs at me. Only it didn’t work.
“Nice try, mermaid,” a cackling Gladrielle said. “But my ability to control heat includes my body heat. I can turn it up, I can turn it down. At will.”
She began to glow brighter and brighter, as she turned her body heat up. A second later, the black ankle length negligee that she was wearing burst into flames. A second after that, she became so bright that everyone in the place had to shield their eyes.
Eventually, Gladrielle turned her body heat down. When she was no longer glowing, when we could look at her again, I lowered the table I was still holding in front of me. I didn’t set it down, I just lowered it enough so I could look at Gladrielle.
Her negligee was reduced to a ring of ash around her feet, which meant that she was buck naked. She started to create another fireball, but got distracted by the sound of approaching sirens.
“This isn’t over mermaid,” she said, looking in the direction of the sirens.
She turned and sprinted out the door. I waited a few seconds, to see if she would pop back in and toss another fireball at me. When she didn’t, I set down the table, returning it to its spot on the floor.
I glanced around, checking to see if Stringbean was the only one that was hurt. As far as I could tell, he was. Frat Boy was holding his phone, which told me that he had been the one that called for backup.
I knelt next to Stringbean, checking to see if he was okay. He was alive, but unconscious. His hands were burned, bad enough to warrant medical attention.
“How is he?” Frat Boy asked, kneeling next to me.
“Alive, but it looks like his hands got burned. I’m guessing he won’t be holding a gun anytime soon.”
“He’s going to hate that.”
We both stood up as a pair of uniformed officers burst into the restaurant. Frat Boy flashed his badge, identifying himself and telling them an officer was down and needed medical attention. While they called an ambulance, Frat Boy turned
to me. “This is the third officer she’s injured in the last twenty-four hours.”
“I’m aware of that,” I said.
“And you still think that you can bring her back from the dark side?”
“I’m getting less sure all the time.”
“When the captain hears about this he’s probably going to order a city wide manhunt for her.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I said. “The more cops you send after her, the more likely those cops will get hurt.”
“Wasn’t that your job when you were with the department?” Frat Boy asked me. “Hunting down rogue supernaturals.”
“Eventually. After I got promoted to detective. And they found out what I was capable of doing.”
“Yeah, well, they just hired someone else to do that job.”
“Another supernatural?”
To say that I was surprised was an understatement. It was hard to find supernaturals that were willing to work with humans. Most supernaturals tend to avoid humans. They didn’t view humans as their equals, despite the fact that humans outnumbered them a million to one. Not to mention that all the roads and cities and pretty much everything else on the planet, was built by humans.
Not only did humans possess the ability to love, something supernaturals seemed to lack, they also possessed the ability to create, something else supernaturals seemed to lack. Think about it. What has a vampire ever created, other than more vampires? What has a werewolf ever created, other than more werewolves? Maybe that was why supernaturals tended to avoid humans. Maybe they were jealous of the fact that they couldn’t create. Not like humans.
Then there was the fact that a lot of supernaturals saw humanity as a walking buffet. That’s how most vamps and bogeymen viewed them. Of course, what they wanted from them was slightly different. Vamps wanted the humans for their blood while bogeymen fed on their youth.
I was curious as to what kind of a supernatural the humans had brought into the police force. What kind of a supernatural could work alongside humans without turning them into a midnight snack?
“The department hired a supernatural to replace me?”
Frat Boy nodded. “Just started this week.”
“So what kind of a guy did they hire.”
“It’s not a guy. It’s a girl. A siren to be exact.”
I burst out laughing. “Let me guess. Petite little blond, calls herself Crystal.”
“Sounds like you’ve met.”
Sirens and mermaids are natural rivals. Mostly because we both love shiny things. Sirens would use their magical voices to lure sailors to them, forcing them to crash their ships upon the rocks. Why did they do it? Simple. They wanted whatever treasure the sailors were carrying. Not that they always got that treasure. A lot of the time some mermaid snatched it up before the siren could get to it.
Sirens aren’t big or strong or fast, but then they don’t need to be, their hypnotic voices can put anyone in a trance, causing them to do something they don’t want to do. Like crash their ship upon the rocks. They also have long life spans, way longer than the two to three hundred years a mermaid lives.
Crystal and John used to work together. They even dated and got engaged. Not that Crystal loved John, like most supernaturals she didn’t possess the ability to love someone else. She was just using John to get back at me.
I snatched a few treasures from underneath her nose, treasures that she had spent a lot of money looking for. Since I took something from her, she decided to take something from me, namely John. When that didn’t work out, she decided to try something else, like getting John kidnapped.
I have no idea why she was working with the cops. I assumed it was another scheme to get back at me. As far as I knew, she didn’t have a background in law enforcement. But then I didn’t know how old she actually was. She was older than me. That’s all I knew. Who knows, maybe Adam or Eve appointed her to be the town sheriff after they got kicked out of the Garden of Eden.
“We’ve met,” I said. “And as far as I know, she has no background in law enforcement, which makes me wonder how she convinced the department to hire her.”
“I heard she volunteered her services,” Frat Boy said. “Free of charge.”
If she was doing this for free, then she was definitely up to something. The question was what?
“I’m not sure a siren is powerful enough to bring down a dark elf,” I said. Nor did I believe Crystal was interested in bringing Gladrielle to justice. It was more likely that she wanted to help Gladrielle kill me.
“Elves have very good hearing,” Frat Boy said. “Which means she should be more susceptible to the siren’s power.”
“And you’re hoping the siren can put her in a trance long enough to allow you guys to lock her up.”
Frat Boy shrugged his shoulders. “She’s done it before, with other supernaturals.”
“She’s not a cop, never went to the police academy.”
“The department refers to her as an independent consultant.”
“And she just showed up one day, volunteering her services.”
“I’m not sure how she hooked up with the department. Rumor is the mayor suggested we hire her.”
That I believed. Crystal did have a lot of money. She owned a business called the Kragen Institute for Marine Research, which is where John used to work. She also had partial ownership in several other businesses, some with supernaturals, some with humans. It didn’t surprise me in the least that she was friends with the mayor. Charming men, human men, was her specialty.
“Speak of the devil,” Frat Boy said.
He nodded toward the door, and to the people that had just entered the restaurant. They included a pair of paramedics, a couple more uniforms, and Walter Francis.
When I was with the force, Walter was a lieutenant in homicide. Which made him second in command in homicide, which made him my boss. He had also been partnered with my father when they were younger. They were still friends, even though my father now lived on the other side of the country.
Walter had recently been promoted to captain and put in charge of the newly formed supernatural division, which meant he was Stringbean’s and Frat Boy’s boss.
There was one more person in Walter’s entourage, Crystal Kragen. She looked the same as the last time I saw her, petite, with long blond hair and bright blue eyes. She looked more like a college cheerleader than a powerful supernatural that was hundreds, if not thousands of years old.
She was also living proof that you didn’t have to be a superhero to have an arch nemesis. Because she was without a doubt, my arch nemesis.