To (Un)Live and Die in Las Vegas...Part 3

So there I sat in the dark of night, wrestling with demons of my own conscience. Should I take some sort of unilateral action separate from my new found friends and compatriots, or should I take the well reasoned, rational approach of mentioning my suspicions to those I knew to be true allies and come up with a common approach to the problem of a traitor?

Well, as I am relatively sure you have guessed by now, I am not yet the well reasoning, rational human being that I sometimes wish to become. Perhaps it was some last vestige of testosterone flowing through what circulatory system I have, or perhaps it just a plain fact that it is not merely testoterone (of which I likely have none) that makes men do the often stupid, irrational things we do.

Either way, you guessed it, I got up in the quiet dark of the room, making sure to move quietly so as not to wake poor Jim from his slumber. I put on the long, dark trenchcoat that was now part of my image and loaded my collapsible baton into its little drop holster that I had fashioned into the right sleeve...I figured there was some head cracking to be done.

I did have enough sense to scribble a little note and place it on the table where Jim would be able to see it when he woke up. I wrote:

“J- Agron is an ally of Drake, I knew him as the Tinker. He can’t be allowed to contact Drake. See you soon.--Rusty”

I left the room, letting the electronic lock click into place as I shut the door quietly. I made my way to the elevator and punched the button to take me to the ground floor. I needed to visit the check-in desk.

A quick check with the listless clerk behind the counter told me that Agron was spending someone’s money well, he was on the top floor of the building, in the suite level. The prick was practically rubbing it in my face, he was using the full name of Agron Tinker. I got the room name (no mere numbers for the suites!) by slipping the kid a twenty dollar bill and headed back for the elevator.

Coming out of the elevator, I was met by another young man I had to bribe in order to have my run of the floor, he was dressed in the uniform of the hotel staff, and looked all officious at first, but a twenty dollar bill and a stern, no-nonsense look from me caused to find renewed interest in the scandal sheet he had been reading before I got out of the elevator.

The hallway of suite level was pretty impressive. Instead of a narrow, empty corridor, this floor was marked with tasteful lamps, discrete alcoves with sets of chairs outside of each door. The rooms were named for various personalities and place names based on the theme of the resort itself, and there weren’t any nice little signs showing which way to go like you see on the common levels of these kinds of places.

After a few minutes of wandering, I came upon the alcove marked by a placard for the name of the suite I was looking for. There were no goons sitting outside, so that was a good sign. I approached the door and was just about to knock on it when I happened to notice that it was slightly ajar.

Now, looking back on things with 20/20 hindsight, this should have been my last, best clue that things just weren’t right. Hindsight, however, is only useful after an event, and as you well know, I have made a rather bad habit at becoming very good at hindsight.

I pushed open the door to see a horrific sight, a landscape of elegant, very expensive furniture laying in ruins, much of it coated in bloody splatters. Several bodies lay strewn about the room, most with their heads bashed in, many with obviously broken limbs. Blood and what looked to be brains were splashed on a nearby wall as if a mad painter had thrown a can of the stuff to make some kind of statement.

All of the hard won instincts instilled by my former career as a police officer screamed at me to turn around and leave, right then, before the authorities arrived as they undoubtedly would. But I saw in the far shadows of the living room, almost behind a plush couch, there was a female figure cowering and wimpering in pain or shock. I could just see enough of her face to recognize her as one of the young women who had come from Chicago with us in the caravan, Jennifer, I think her name was.

When she saw me, her eyes grew wide with fear, and then seemed to relax with recognition. She cried out in a small, wavering voice, “Help me!”

I rushed into the room towards her, my vision tunneling in on her battered form, she had obviously been attacked as well, appeared to be suffering from a broken arm and her left knee was bent in a way that it shouldn’t have been.

My only warning to the coming attack was to see her eyes widen once more in fear, causing me to tspin around and throw up my right arm in a blocking motion. What I saw left me nearly as stunned as the powerful blow that came crashing down on me!

Greg, or rather Greg’s animated body had come out from a door that I had not noticed when I was rushing to help Jennifer. He was covered from head to toe in blood and gore as he brought his own collapsible baton down on my right forearm with incredible force, knocking me backwards and down onto the already trashed coffee table.

Luckily, the baton was no real match for my reinforced bones and my own baton that was still in its drop down sheath, but the force of the blow was enough to knock me off balance and into a couple of bodies.

As I was recovering my senses, I looked into what passed for Greg’s eyes, opening my own third eye, to see if Greg’s spirit was in this body, but what I saw only horrified me more. The darkness that passed for spirit in the body was definitely not Greg’s Spirit, but seemed to be a teaming mass of partial or incomplete spirits of some sort. Their sheer malevolence was almost palpable. My own Spirit shuddered to see such evil incarnate and in such a dangerous, human looking form. The foul creature raised its arm to continue its attack.

Behind me, I could hear Jennifer scream in fear and obvious pain.

Ignoring the threat of the coming attack, I was able to glance over and see Papa Locks emerge from the shadows beside Jennifer, smile in obvious glee as he reached out to Jennifer and snapped her neck in his huge hands in one fell motion all before I could do anything to help her out.

Distracted as I was, I was unable to prevent the foul creature that was using Greg’s body from raining blows down upon me, all I could do was shield my head as best as possible and try to roll in a kneeling position to try to regain balance to counter-attack.

Just as managed to get to my knees and rise up, ready to face the beast, I heard Papa Locks bellow out an order in what I assumed to be Creole. The creature grunted something back at him, dropped his baton to floor at my feet and lunge for the shadows to my side. It and Papa Locks disappeared into the shadows just as I heard that all too predictable cry of:

“Freeze motherfucker, Police!”

I looked over to the wide open door to see several armed members of Las Vegas’ finest standing there with weapons drawn. I dropped my own baton, and raised my hands....