Chapter Three
“How kind of you to appear on my show,” Corky Courrant said, smiling for the camera.
“My pleasure.” Phineas returned her smile. As far as he could tell, Corky’s makeshift studio was in the basement of a duplex somewhere in Brooklyn or Queens. They hadn’t driven far, and he’d been able to catch a glimpse of the residence after Corky’s minions had hauled him and Freemont from the back of the van.
He sat on a tufted footstool, low to the ground to emphasize his inferior status, while next to him, Corky posed in a high-backed, ornately carved, red velvet upholstered chair. He had to crane his neck to avoid peering straight at her massive bosom, which threatened to escape her low-cut, shimmering gold gown. Her jeweled tiara and numerous rings glittered under the bright overhead lights.
They had started the show with a recording of a trumpet fanfare befitting a queen. Corky had confided in him that she’d first heard the piece at the court of Henry VIII where she’d been one of the king’s favorites. Phineas figured she had a long history of using powerful men to get ahead.
The wall behind them was draped in purple silk. In front of them, Rat Face worked the camera, and Blockhead held the boom suspended over Corky’s head. Across the room, Freemont perched stiffly on a metal folding chair while Dimitri aimed his automatic pistol at him. Another armed Malcontent stood by the door, and Phineas had counted three more upstairs on the ground floor. A total of seven men, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Angus was planning to hit with a dozen guys from MacKay S&I.
Even though the mission was simple—capture Corky—a nagging fear pricked at Phineas. His orders were to stick close to Corky and to not let her get away, but he hadn’t counted on his brother being here.
He swallowed hard, then pasted a smile back on his face. “Thank you for inviting me, Corky—”
She kicked him in the shin.
“Miss Corky.” Another kick. “Queen Corky.” His smile barely wavered. “Your most glorious Majesty. I’ve always been a big fan of your show.”
“Well, of course you are.” She waved her hand in a regal fashion. “My show has always enjoyed the highest ratings of any show on DVN. Everyone adores my show. Naturally, since everyone adores me. But enough about me.”
She gave a throaty laugh. “Let’s talk a moment about those despicable, hateful bastards who’ve been persecuting me, forcing me to take my spectacular show into hiding. I’m talking, of course, about those bottle-drinking cowards who refuse to behave like true vampires.”
“Yes—”
“And I’m especially referring to their ringleaders,” Corky continued. “Roman Draganesti, who invented that nasty swill he calls synthetic blood, and then he contaminated it even further with his disgusting Vampire Fusion Cuisine.” She paused, looking down her nose at Phineas. “You don’t actually enjoy that Blardonnay, do you?”
“Shit, no.” Phineas made a face. “I can barely stomach it. But a man’s got to make a living, you know.”
“I understand.” She patted the top of his head like he was her new pet. “Sadly, there are times when we must suffer for our art. But back to those vicious ringleaders—the worst one, without a doubt, is that wretched Angus MacKay, the head of MacKay Security and Investigation. Of course, we all know that organization is nothing more than a notorious gang of armed thugs.”
Phineas nodded. “I’m so glad I finally got away from them. They treated me like a dog.”
Corky gasped with indignation. “You poor man. Do tell us more.” Her smile turned vicious. “Every vile and disgusting detail.”
“Of course. First of all, I think they’re mentally unstable.”
Her eyes gleamed. “I’ve always suspected as much.”
Phineas shrugged. “Well, it’s just a personal opinion, you understand, but I think they carry those huge swords around ’cause they’re compensating. When a guy runs around in a skirt for five hundred years, you gotta wonder about him, you know.”
Corky snorted. “So true. The bastard who murdered my poor, beloved Casimir was wearing one of those stupid kilts. Those Scottish barbarians will never—” She gasped when the door crashed open and a horde of kilted barbarians rushed in at vampire speed.
On second look only Angus, Robby, Ian, and Dougal were wearing kilts. The others wore pants, but would probably enjoy being called barbarians.
Swords clashed upstairs, and Phineas realized some of Angus’s team had engaged the guards on the ground floor.
He leaped on Corky and wrapped his arms around her. If she tried to teleport away, she’d have to take him with her, along with his boot that still emitted a tracking beam.
Corky struggled against his hold. “Let me go, you traitor!” She froze, stunned by the sight of Robby zooming toward her with a silver chain stretched taut between his gloved hands. Not only would the silver burn if it came into contact with her skin, but it would prevent her from teleporting.
She shrieked.
“Release her!” Dimitri yanked Freemont to his feet and jabbed a pistol against his temple. “Or I’ll kill him!”
Phineas’s heart lurched. His brother would never be able to overpower a vampire. He shoved Corky toward Robby, then teleported behind Dimitri and wrenched the gun from his hand. He pulled back his arm to punch Dimitri, but the Russian vanished. Shit. The damned Malcontents were always running away.
But to his surprise, Dimitri didn’t bail on his queen. He rematerialized behind Robby, who had looped the silver chain around Corky. A knife flashed in the bright studio lights.
“Robby, behind you!” Phineas shouted.
Robby spun to face his attacker and grabbed Dimitri’s arm. Angus zoomed toward them and clunked the Russian on the head with the hilt of his claymore. Dimitri collapsed on the floor unconscious.
Meanwhile, Corky wiggled free from the silver chain, and just as Robby made a grab for her, she teleported away.
“Nay!” Robby and Angus shouted in unison.
A pall of disappointment fell with a whoosh over the room. They had taken everyone prisoner except the target.
“She got away?” Freemont asked. “Can you follow her?”
With a curse, Phineas kicked the metal folding chair. “We don’t know where she went.”
“Hot damn,” Freemont whispered. “I’ve never seen so many booty-licious babes in one room.”
“They can hear you.” Phineas cast an apologetic look at Caitlyn, Toni, and Lara, then leaned close to his brother. “Watch what you say once their husbands arrive. They have super hearing and super strength.”
“Right.” Freemont stopped ogling the women and gazed forlornly at the leopard-skin fedora he’d placed in front of him on the long wooden table.
They were sitting in a conference room at Romatech, waiting for the strategy meeting to begin. After the fiasco at Corky’s hideout, Phineas had offered to teleport his brother back to DVN, so he could return the limo to Leroy’s House of Class, but Freemont had insisted on sticking by his side.
“A friend of yours is a friend of mine,” Freemont had told him. “And an enemy of yours is an enemy of mine. I’ve got your back, bro, you know what I’m saying?”
Phineas had pulled him into a hug, his heart swelling with love and pride. Then he’d teleported Freemont to Romatech and introduced him to his friends.
The two mortals, Rat Face and Blockhead, had been teleported to Romatech, along with an unconscious Dimitri. The prisoners were downstairs in the basement, the mortals in an interrogation room, and Dimitri in the silver room to keep him from teleporting away.
“I screwed up, didn’t I?” Freemont mumbled. “The old dude will never hire me now.”
Phineas shifted in his chair. “You never know. Angus is pretty cool—”
“But the bitch got away ’cause you had to save me. I should have stayed out of it, I guess.”
“You guess?” Phineas gave him an annoyed look. “Didn’t I tell you to lay low?”
Freemont winced and slumped lower in his chair. “I totally blew it.”
Most of the MacKay S&I employees were busy elsewhere, but a few of the ladies had gathered early in the conference room. Across the table, a very pregnant Caitlyn Panterra was discussing baby things with Toni MacPhie.
“Are all the women here knocked up?” Freemont whispered.
“Toni and Caitlyn are,” Phineas mumbled. These days, he was surrounded with happily married couples.
Lara di Venezia grinned at them. “Scary, isn’t it? Olivia’s expecting, too. I feel all alone these days.”
Freemont sat up, smiling at the pretty redhead. “I’d be happy to keep you company.”
Phineas nudged him with an elbow. “Lara is married to Jack, one of the best swordsmen in the vampire world.”
Freemont huffed with disappointment. “Are all the babes here married?”
“Very happily married,” Phineas grumbled.
“Have you seen LaToya lately?” Lara asked him.
He groaned inwardly. “No.”
“Oh.” Lara’s smile faded. “I thought you might have gone to New Orleans for her birthday. I sent her a card last week, but I haven’t heard back from her.”
Phineas sighed. LaToya had never told him her birth date. Probably because she didn’t want a present from him. Hell, who was he kidding? She’d never wanted anything from him.
“Who are you talking about?” Freemont asked.
“LaToya Lafayette,” Lara replied. “We were roommates when we both worked for the NYPD. More than roommates, actually. Best friends. But she’s never been able to accept the fact that I married a Vamp.”
“Bummer,” Freemont mumbled.
“Yes.” Lara heaved a big sigh. “I miss her. She moved back to New Orleans, and joined the police force there. You went to see her at Christmastime, didn’t you, Phineas?”
He nodded.
Freemont eyed him curiously. “You have a girlfriend?”
“No.” Not unless there was a new tradition for mistletoe that involved a girlfriend threatening to shoot off her boyfriend’s head. “We don’t get along very well.”
“I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out for you,” Lara said, then shook her head sadly. “I tried so many times to tell her what a nice guy you are, but—”
“It’s okay,” Phineas interrupted her. “She just doesn’t like Vamps.”
“Exactly,” Lara agreed. “So you shouldn’t take it personally. She would have rejected any—”
“I know.” Phineas gritted his teeth. “It’s no big deal.”
Lara gave him a dubious look, then thankfully turned her attention to Freemont. “I don’t mean to pry, but I heard you talking about MacKay S and I. Are you going to work with us?”
“I’d like to.” Freemont glanced at Phineas. “It would be buck.”
“Don’t forget you need to finish college,” Phineas murmured.
Freemont rolled his eyes. “I can do both. I’m free for the rest of this summer. And I could take night classes from now on.” He made a face. “I’m just afraid I blew my chance. The old dude’s not going to want me now. I screwed up his last mission.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Lara insisted. “Vampires and shifters are stronger than us—”
“Shifters?” Freemont’s eyes widened. “What the hell is a shifter?”
“Oops,” Lara whispered.
Phineas winced. “I didn’t quite tell you everything.”
Freemont sat back. “What do you mean? There’s more spooky shit?”
“Yeah. Some of the people you’ll meet tonight aren’t vampires. They’re not exactly human, either.”
“They’re aliens?”
“No, they’re from Earth.”
“Oh, good.” Freemont exhaled with relief. “Those aliens really freak me out. I mean, why do they travel a jillion light-years just to stick a probe up someone’s ass?”
“They’re not aliens,” Phineas muttered, aware that the ladies in the room were snickering. “They’re shifters.”
“So how do they shift? Do they phase from one alternate reality to another?”
Phineas scoffed. “What kind of crap have you been watching? There is no alternate reality.”
“So you say.” Freemont’s gaze darted suspiciously around the room. “But how can you be sure?”
“Because this is it! Has anyone in the entire history of our planet ever found a portal to another dimension?”
Freemont lifted a finger to make a point. “If they stepped through, then they’re not here to tell us about it.”
Lara chuckled. “That’s a good point.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Phineas muttered.
“So how does the shifting thing work?” Freemont’s eyes lit up. “I know! They ascend into a more advanced, spiritual form, one that goes beyond the restraints of a physical body, so they exist as pure transcendent energy—”
“They’re animals.”
“Huh?”
“They shift into animals,” Phineas repeated. “Like wolves.”
“You mean werewolves?” Freemont stiffened, his expression tinged with panic. “You’re messing with me, right? I mean, vampires are bad enough, but I figure they like to pick on the pretty ladies, so I’m safe. But werewolves! They’ll chew on anything. They’re big! And bad!”
“And they’ll blow your house down.” Phineas’s smile quickly faded as the same old vision flitted through his mind. Pale blue eyes the color of a summer sky. Why did the most beautiful woman on Earth have to belong to the canine family? Stop thinking about her! Brynley was all wrong. And she hated Vamps even more than LaToya.
Why couldn’t he do like most of the Vamp guys and fall for a nice mortal girl? A mortal girl would be safe. And logical.
Maybe Freemont was right, and he needed to go to a psychiatric hospital. He had to be crazy to have a female shifter constantly invading his thoughts. And not just any hairy old shifter, but a rich princess wolf who enjoyed snarling and growling at him. And that was when she was in human form.
“You’re not punkin’ me?” Freemont asked.
“No,” Phineas said. “You’ll meet Phil. He’s a werewolf.” And twin brother to Big Bad Wolfie-Girl. Don’t think about her! If she knew how much he obsessed over her, she’d probably bite off one of his ears. While she was still in human form. God knows what she’d do to him as a wolf.
“There are other kinds of shifters, too,” Lara added. “Howard is a were-bear, and Rajiv’s a were-tiger. Caitlyn here is a were-panther.”
Caitlyn raised a hand in greeting. “Meow!”
Freemont gasped. “You’re a cat?”
“Not at the moment.” Caitlyn grinned. “The lack of fur is a major clue.”
Freemont’s gaze drifted down and then back up. “But you’re pregnant.”
Still smiling, she patted her big belly. “Twins.”
He gulped and shifted his gaze to Toni. “What are you?”
“The most awesome creature on the planet,” she replied with a wry look. “A human female.”
“You go, girl.” Lara gave her a high five.
Freemont gave Phineas an incredulous look. “Your life just gets weirder and weirder.”
The door swung open, and a group of MacKay employees filed in. Ian MacPhie and Jack di Venezia pulled up chairs to squeeze in next to their wives.
“Another cat?” Freemont whispered when Carlos Panterra sat next to Caitlyn.
Phineas nodded. “And that’s the werewolf taking the chair beside you.”
Freemont glanced warily at Phil, who gave him a wolfish grin.
At the foot of the table, Emma MacKay set Phineas’s wallet and cell phone on the table and slid them down to him. “One of the mortal prisoners had them.”
He pocketed them. “Thanks.”
Emma took a seat. “Angus will be here shortly to begin the meeting. Howard and J.L. are still at Corky’s place, scouring it for clues. Robby and Olivia are handling the mortals. Rajiv’s in the security office, keeping an eye on things, and we left Mikhail and Austin in the silver room to guard the Malcontent.”
Jack chuckled. “They piss him off the most. Dimitri hates Mikhail for being a Russian on our side, and he hates Austin because he’s immune to vampire mind control.”
“I wish you let me talk to him.” A newcomer strode into the room, talking with a thick Russian accent. “I would make him really mad.”
“Hey, Stan.” Phineas gave him a knuckle pound as the former Malcontent passed by.
“I’m sorry, Stanislav,” Emma said. “But we can’t let any Malcontents know you’re here, not with the bounty they’ve put on your head.”
Stan nodded, then sat next to Phineas. “That was good what you said in the interview. Maybe now my old friends not be so eager to kill me.”
“I liked yer interview.” Ian’s mouth twitched. “Especially the part about Angus being a rich old fart.”
Everyone chuckled, including Emma.
“And then, ye told him to go to hell,” Ian continued. “What was it ye called him?”
“An old turd.”
The laughter ended abruptly at the sound of Angus’s stern voice. He stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest as he glowered at Phineas.
Freemont gulped and gave Phineas a worried look.
“I was trying to sound convincing,” Phineas said.
Angus continued to stare at him.
“It was all an act, you know,” Phineas added.
Angus strode toward him, then grinned and slapped him on the back. “I was just playing with you, lad. Ye did verra well. Ye led us straight to our target.”
Phineas winced. “But she still got away.”
Freemont jumped to his feet. “It was my fault, sir. I apologize.”
Angus turned to regard him curiously. “Ye’re Phineas’s brother? Freemont, is it?”
“Yes, sir.” He squared his shoulders. “It was my fault Corky escaped.”
“No—” Phineas began.
“Why do ye say that?” Angus interrupted, focused on Freemont.
“My brother told me to lay low, and I didn’t—”
“Why?” Angus asked.
Freemont glanced at Phineas. “I couldn’t let him go into danger alone.”
“Och, so ye’re verra loyal to yer brother?” Angus narrowed his eyes. “Can ye be that loyal to his friends?”
Freemont nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Angus rested a hand on his shoulder. “Doona blame yerself for what happened. ’Tis no easy task to capture a vampire. It took us years to catch up with Casimir. We’ll get Corky, too.”
“Yes, sir.” Freemont looked relieved as he sat back down.
“Now, let’s get on with the briefing.” Angus strode to the head of the table and gripped the back of the chair. “So far, Dimitri has told us nothing.”
Jack shrugged. “He will once he gets hungry enough.”
“Aye,” Angus agreed. “But we willna know if he’s telling us the truth. Olivia’s lie-detecting skills only work on mortals. She’s verified our two mortal prisoners are telling the truth. They know nothing, other than the nonsense they were programmed to believe. They love Queen Corky and want to die for her.”
“What will we do with them, then?” Toni asked.
“Robby will erase their memories, and we’ll take them back to their homes,” Angus replied. “Hopefully, they can go back to their normal lives.”
“So we have no idea where Corky may have teleported to?” Phineas asked.
Angus drummed his fingers on the back of the chair. “We can make a good guess. The Malcontents we encountered on the ground floor teleported away when they realized they were outnumbered. But we heard them talk to each other, and it sounded like Hungarian. And of course, Dimitri is Russian.”
Ian leaned back in his chair. “Most Malcontents are Eastern European or Russian.”
“Aye.” Angus nodded. “As for Corky’s whereabouts, since Roman issued a warrant for her arrest here in the States, I doona think she’ll remain here. She’s declared herself the Malcontent queen, so I believe she’ll seek refuge with them. She’s originally from England, so she probably teleported there, and then plans to move on to Eastern Europe or Russia whenever it grows dark there.”
Everyone murmured their agreement.
“We’ll have three search teams working out of three different bases,” Angus continued. “One in Moscow at Mikhail’s house, one in Budapest at Zoltan’s house, and the last one at Stanislav’s house in Minsk. Emma and I will be in charge in Moscow, Robby and Stan in Minsk, and Jack and Lara will assist Zoltan in Budapest. We doona expect any trouble at the school, so Ian and Carlos, I apologize for separating you from yer wives when they’re expecting, but we need every available man to help with the search.”
Carlos touched his wife’s shoulder. “Caitlyn is due in about two weeks.”
“We’ll bring you back in a week, or sooner, if need be,” Emma assured him.
Angus went on to assign everyone, making sure each team had at least two day guards. Olivia, Toni, and Caitlyn, the three pregnant women, would remain behind to protect the Dragon Nest Academy, a fairly easy job since no Malcontents knew the school even existed.
“Phineas, ye’ll remain here at Romatech, in charge of security,” Angus announced.
“But I thought you needed every available—”
“I have to leave someone here in charge, and I trust you,” Angus said.
Phineas sighed. He would have liked to see some faraway places, but he knew the other guys were better suited for the search. Jack could speak Czech and Italian. Austin knew several Slavic languages. Robby and Angus knew French and Russian. “Okay, I’ll stay here.”
“It’s an important job,” Emma reminded him. “Our attempt to capture Corky will have angered the few remaining Malcontents here in the States, and you know that Romatech is one of their favorite places to attack. We also need you to keep Roman safe.”
Phineas nodded. “I understand.”
Angus smiled. “And since ye’ll be here, ye can start yer brother’s training. That is, if he’s interested in working for us.”
“Yes, sir!” Freemont sat up. “Phineas will train me real good. I’ll be solid. Hard-core.”
Angus nodded, his smile widening. “I’m sure ye will. Welcome to MacKay S and I.”
Everyone at the table congratulated Freemont.
With a grin, Phineas gave his brother a knuckle pound. “Way to go, bro.”
“Phineas can get you the forms to fill out,” Angus said, then strode toward the door. “As for everyone else, gather the weapons and supplies ye need. We start teleporting to the London office in ten minutes.”