Justin Gustainis - Those Who Fight Monsters Tales of Occult Detectives

There was something about the boiler room of the Palliser Hotel that set off alarm bells in my mind, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. So, rather than do something as potentially fatal as asking one of the people in the room with me, I went to the ‘intercom’ in my head.

While it’s taken some getting used to, one unique thing about werewolf mates is that they’re telepathically tied to each other. In sticky situations like this, being in instant contact with my wife was often more useful than an extra clip of ammo.

Sue?

Hey, lover. What’s up? Her voice was warm and slightly sleepy. She’s been working a lot of late nights, also for Wolven, and supposedly had the day off. So I’ve been trying to stay out of her head. We’re getting better at shutting out the other person from our day to day thoughts. It had been making both of us a little squirrely.

Palliser Hotel, in Calgary. See if you can find anything online about the basement. I’m remembering something in the back of my head, but since we’re being chased by snakes right now, I don’t want to spend the brainpower to figure it out.

Snakes? Uh-oh. Not good. The word made her nervous enough that the walls were breaking down in our heads. I was starting to see our bedroom overlaid on the machinery. The furnace grate was wearing a burgundy coverlet and the brick walls had drapes.

Whoa, we’re fine. Okay? I’m here with Lucas and Carmine and we’re all armed. I don’t think they even know where we are. We booked it out of the room as soon as I smelled them. But Carmine’s hiding something and I need to know what. I’m going to shut the vault door now, so knock before you come back in.

She took a deep mental breath and calmed. Okay, sorry. I’m just still having nightmares about snakes from the attack last fall. It’ll pass. I’ll find what I can and get back to you.

I felt a bump against my shoulder and turned my head before I turned my gun. Sure, it was only Lucas, but still — Getting sloppy, Giodone.

He must have noticed that I was having trouble focusing, because he stopped and waited for a moment. “You back with us? Getting a vision?”

One of the nice things about Lucas is he’s been around seers his whole life, and he was mated up until he turned back human. “Having Sue do some research on her end while we’re getting out of here.”

He looked at me for a long moment, likely wondering just what I was having her research, but he didn’t say anything in front of Carmine. Instead, he motioned around the room with his Ruger. “Getting anything?”

I had done a quick scan when we stepped through the hidden door, but did another just to be safe. “All clear … although there have been snakes down here pretty recently. No more than a week.”

Carmine frowned, as well he should. The guys who beat the crap out of him were snake shifters. He was damned lucky he wasn’t turning on the moon like me. He’d originally attributed the attack to a South American mafia trying to get back an ancient artifact one of his people stole. Now, it looked like it might be something entirely different. “I just got here a week ago. Think it’s coincidence?”

Lucas and I turned at once and both stared at him. I mean … duh . “You tell me,” I said.

He didn’t respond, but just stared at me, which was weird. Here he’s worried about snakes, who have been in the room recently, and he’s only got my word the room is clear, but he’s not looking around the room, checking out every shadow. That’s very unlike him. He’s even more paranoid than me.

Tony? I’ve got your answer.

Not the warning I asked for, but there isn’t anything critical going on anyway. What’cha got?

There’s a secret tunnel in the boiler room of the Palliser.

Ah! That’s where I remember it. It was in one of those ‘Secrets of’ series of books — strange things about major cities. Okay. Just came down the tunnel. Staircase to the fourth floor, right?

There was a pause. Um … no. That’s not mentioned. This one is an old laundry tunnel that goes under the railroad tracks and veers east for a few blocks. Seems that years ago, the hotel cleaned all the linens a couple blocks away. It’s sealed off in the boiler room, but the tunnel’s still there.

Little pieces were starting to fall together in my head, but it would require a little private detecting later, when nobody was around.

There are a lot of times when the local police are handy to our kind. One of those times is when people ransack rooms looking for things. It was short work to install Carmine at a different hotel and have Babs — my private name for Barbara Herrera, call the hotel and complain that someone with a master key broke into the room and robbed her while she was napping. We got her back up to the room the same way as we got out, long after the snakes were gone. The security cameras would definitely show the door being opened with a key. Apparently, they’d been coming and going through the secret staircase to avoid cameras showing Carmine and Linda out of the country, so as far as the cameras were concerned, they’d never left the room.

Less than two hours after I’d left, I was back in the laundry room.

I didn’t smell anything I hadn’t smelled before and saw no glowing evidence of other Sazi in the room before I slipped inside. But when I felt the cold press of a gun barrel to my temple, I knew I hadn’t been careful enough. I dutifully raised my hands while I was relieved of my weapons. But since she was human, and it was the first night of the moon I still had an advantage.

The thick Russian accent from the woman was a surprise. “Where is the box?”

“Box?” This was news to me.

The question earned me a swipe across the back of the skull with the gun, hard enough to make me realize this was no human. I wound up sprawled face down, spitting blood from kissing the concrete. “Do not toy with me, wolf. Why else would you return to the tunnel?”

She knew I was Sazi? That lowered my brows and made me push off hard from the floor to try to take her feet out from under her. Her reaction was fast enough to avoid my leg sweep. That told me she was either a cat or a spider in her animal form. But it did give me enough time to get my feet under me and face her. She should have an aura, but didn’t. No scent, no magic aura, but a shifter? That was just wrong on so many levels.

We squared off in the small space, but neither of us attacked. Yes, she could shoot me, but she didn’t seem inclined. Apparently, she thought I had information. Unfortunately, all I had were guesses. I was betting she had actual answers .

I took off the gloves, both metaphorically and physically. All I had to do was get close enough to touch skin and she was mine . But then the hammer cocked back and her eyes narrowed.

“You will put the gloves back on. Now! ” I paused and then dropped them to the floor. She backed away. “We have heard of your Sazi mind tricks, seer. I am willing to shoot you if I must and find another way to get the information.” She raised the Taurus she’d taken from me and likewise cocked the hammer. One gun was aimed at my head now, the other at my chest. Simultaneous shots would put me down permanently. She motioned with the barrel pointed at my heart. “Pick up the gloves and put them back on.”

I did as I was told. But as they say, you can’t stop me from thinking bad things.

I threw open the door in my mind. Sue’s consciousness slipped inside of mine seamlessly. I didn’t need to speak. She’d be able to see the guns pointed at me and know instantly where I was. Call Lucas on his cell. Tell him the nice lady with the guns wants some sort of box and thinks I know where it is.