Mario Acevedo - Werewolf Smackdown (Felix Gomez, Book 5)

To the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, thanks for the leg up

Felix, I want him dead. Eric Bourbon held up a severed

I was brought to Charleston to murder a werewolf? I

The giant crab tumbled straight for me.

I stood on the rooftop level of the garage, the

Julius Paxton. Formerly a deputy chief in the Los Angeles Police Department.

Eric Bourbon let the wily expression ease from his face and

I left Bourbons office, passed his bodyguards, and got into

I sat in the back of the limo, me against

Calhoun let his eyebrows settle and his expression became flat

The truck smashed into the Mercedes.

The werewolfs leer turned into a deep, pissed-off scowl, and

We passed the two guards. The female were crouched to

One of the French doors at the back of the

Calhoun turned his back to me and walked to the

Ive seen Lon Chaney Jr., I said. I get the whole full-moon-and-you-guys-go-feral

Four days to werewolf Armageddon.

Wendy stared at me, her expression one of cool, unpleasant

Spy? That revelation whipped through me like Id taken a

The limo stopped. Wendy trotted to the rear door. Jealousy

I put myself between Charly and the werewolves.

Two werewolves against one vampire.

Charly kept her face down and ran a hand through

Bourbon, the treacherous bastard.

Bourbon pointed to the sailing ships in the harbor. The

Lori let me out in front of the Atlas Mortuary.

I asked, And who is King Gullah?

Lemuel knocked on the door and announced himself. He said

I entered the barbershop.

Gullah stopped tapping the cane. Who the hell is he?

I rushed here from work to catch you. Wendy buckled

Wendy came back down the hall. She walked in her

If I were still human, the breath wouldve shriveled in

I entered the mortuary extra quietlike. Just in case. I

Angela cast her eyes downward. A firmness settled around her

I lay on a dirty wooden floor, not sure of

We drove east over the Ashley River, then south to

Angela wiggled her shoulders, and the dress slipped down her

I rubbed antiseptic balm into the wound on Angelas right

The roof of the mortuary broke apart into flames and

Wendy lay under a pile of debris. Her aura glowed;

Id just crawled out of an inferno, my breath still

The EMTs pushed Wendy and the gurney to the end

The helicopter had landed on Latralls estate and Wendys body

I looked about the rooms, at the plants, the mounds

Gullah put on his sunglasses as if to distance himself

The womans aura lit up like Id cranked up the

The Webley pointed right at my face. A half-dozen silver

The costume ball was in the Old City Jail, not

The ghost stepped to the floor. A bare foot stretched

We didnt need King Gullah crashing the Werewolf Costume Ball.

Calhoun was dressed like a sea captain, in a long

A figure approached from around the front of the jail.

I pushed from the floor and floated over the Pontiac,

The name lanced me. What did you say?

Angela halted her Maserati in front of the Washington Arms.

My room phone buzzed, bringing me out of my trance.

Gullah removed his sunglasses. His eyes shone with a red

My kundalini noir about leaped out of my aura in astonishment.

The ring spun on the floor until it looked like

King Gullah measured his steps with the thumping of his crystal-topped

Gullah, Rooster, Yo-Yo, and I backtracked to the hall and

If King Gullah and his goons were at my side when

The twin shadows approaching over the asphalt shrank and grew,

I didnt check if the door was locked. I simply

A nauseating odor of rancid meat and excrement surged out

I had all three chalices after me, a trio of

Calhouns goons dragged me outside. They wrenched my arms behind

The helicopter turned off its strobe lights and descended to

The werewolf emcee glared into the crowd from her spot

Justice? I chewed at the metal bit. Clumps of spit

A female voice shouted above the chanting. Stop.

The S-76 helicopter shuttled us back to Latralls estate. Angela

I was back where my adventures usually ended, in my

Felix, I want him dead. Eric Bourbon held up a severed head. The head belonged to a Caucasian man in his early thirties. By the musky taint of the cadaver reek, the victim had been more than a manhe was a werewolf in human form. A were .

The eyelids were hooded, the cleanly shaven jaw slack, the pale lips opened slightly, the waxy complexion bleached from the loss of blood. The neck was a ragged stump that had been gnawed off the shoulders. A diamond earring glittered in the left earlobe.

I said, He looks pretty dead to me.

Not him. Bourbon dropped the head into a large Tupperware bowl on his desk and wiped his hand with a kerchief. He shuffled photos from a manila file folder and pointed to the top photo. Him. His name is Randolph Calhoun, Bourbon explained in a melodious Southern drawl, the inflection equally polite and condescending.

As I took the photos, he dropped the kerchief over the severed head, fit the lid back on the bowl, and worked the edges to seal in the freshness. He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a can of room deodorizer.

I sat back in my chair to avoid getting misted with the scent of spring meadow and studied the ink-jet photos of Calhoun. Bourbon dumped the room deodorizer back into the drawer.

Calhoun sported a helmet of black hair with graying temples. Dapper whether in boating clothes or a tux, but with his wrinkles and slack jowls, he looked like the has-been love interest in a soap opera. His physique varied from trim to paunchy. I arranged the photos in the order from slim to heavy and noticed the accumulating wrinkles and gray hair that accompanied his weight gain. The pictures had been taken at social events, always with people huddling close to absorb the warmth of his charismatic smile.

Is he one of you? By that I meant werewolf.

Bourbon grinned in acknowledgment, radiating a hungry, predatory demeanor. His eyes shone with a wolfish glint from pink, wrinkled sockets. When I first saw them, Id thought of sphincters.

I have seen werewolves before. As long as they stayed out of my way, I stayed out of theirs. I never bothered mentioning them for the same reason I never said anything about skunks or cockroaches.

Bourbon dressed like a were used to spending money, most certainly someone elses. He wore a trim white shirt with blue pinstripes and monogrammed cuffs. The shirt creased sharply over the angles of his athletic torso. A silk tie complemented his shirt and gold jewelry. His blond hair, short on the sides, was separated with a razor-neat part.

We sat in his office on the third floor of a commercial building on Broad Street in Charleston, South Carolina. A sky of azure blue filled the one picture window.

The walls displayed his J.D. from the University of South Carolina. A framed illustration from the weekly City Pages showed Eric Bourbon, attorney-at-law, leering above a cartoon map of the Charleston peninsula. Id done my homework on him and was familiar with the article. (But my homework wasnt thorough enough. Id missed his being a werewolf until I walked past his were bodyguards out in the hall.) The newspaper had slammed Bourbon for having the opportunistic scruples of a pickpocket. His reply: You dont get in the legal business to make friends.

Id come here thinking this would be a case of straightforward PI work. I wanted nothing that had to do with my previous assignments involving the paranormal, both the successes and the screwups. No alien conspiracies. No political intrigue on behalf of the AraneumLatin for spiderwebthe worldwide secret network of vampires. No supernatural hoodoo. Two thousand just to hear Bourbon pitch his case. No refunds. Strictly gumshoe hustling for money.