Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“We have the info,” I said aloud even though I was talking to myself. “We have it. We just have to find it and figure it out.”

Jane pulled the rag mags from her underpants and slapped them down on the pine needle covered ground next to the map. Martha pulled a small notebook and a pen from her grundies and tried to hand them to me. Touching items that had been up her ass wasn’t on my agenda. Not today. Not ever.

“Why don’t you take the notes?” I suggested.

“On it, Knockers LeBubbles!”

“Jane,” I said, shocked I was able to keep a straight face with what I was about to say. “Pinch your nips. Satan made a comment about the weather. Maybe the weather girl has some clues.”

“My fuckin’ pleasure!” she said and got to work.

“Headlines,” I said, pointing to Augustus as I stood up to pace. Moving made my mind work better. “Please, read them to me.”

“As you wish,” he said. “ Farmer Joe Kills 200 Pound Cockroach With Squirt Gun .”

“Another,” I said. That told me nothing.

Augustus continued. “ Bigfoot Loves Country Music.”

I shook my head. “More.”

He obliged. “ Peter the Basement Sex Dwarf Eaten By Honey Badger AND LIVED! ”

“That’s it,” I said as excitement shot through me. I grabbed the map and went over it inch by inch.

“What’s it?” Poosh asked.

“The basement,” I said, trying to make sense of all the lines and numbers. This wasn’t like any map I’d seen before. Not that I used maps all that much. GPS was my best friend.

“I’m gonna second that,” Tracy said. “I thought it was kind of odd that the weather gal in Jane’s nip said to get your umbrella from the basement, but now it makes more sense.”

I wanted to say nothing made sense about Jane’s talking fun buttons, but kept that thought to myself. Honestly, if their fun buttons saved the day, I would let the old bags go topless for a year. Of course, I’d suggest that they spend the twelve months in Hell…

“I’m gonna third it since it was the bottom of my nip that was talkin’ and tellin’ me that my man is low to the ground.”

“Anyone an expert at topography?” I asked, trying to decipher the lines and arrows.

“I am,” Felix announced with a preemptive bow.

I handed it over. “Find out which buildings have a basement.”

The warrior saluted me and went to work. Augustus and Poosh helped him. Martha and Jane were going to town on their knockers and Tracy simply smiled at me.

“What?” I asked.

“When Lucifer mentioned Pam, was he speaking of Queen Paloma?” she inquired.

“He was. She’s my smack-talking Guardian Angel and was there for me in a big way when I was turned,” I explained.

Tracy chuckled. “Doesn’t surprise me. Pam’s a firecracker! Love her to bits.”

I stared at Tracy momentarily and wondered who she didn’t know. She seemed to be connected to all the people I loved the most. That would have to be a conversation for another time. Reminding myself that words had meaning, I stayed on the subject.

“Why did you bring up Pam?” I questioned.

“I’m curious as to what she said,” Tracy told me. “Can you share it?”

With Tracy, I’d share pretty much anything at this point. I hoped to Hell and back that she might have some insight on Pam’s vague message. “Yep. She said that I always need to be willing to burn a bridge when I’m standing on it, but I have to make sure the time is right.”

“Fascinating,” Tracy said. “Do you think she meant it literally or figuratively?”

“Not a clue,” I said. “I was hoping you might know.”

She shook her head. “Pam’s a funny one. I’d say be prepared for either scenario.”

Even though she didn’t think she had any insight, she did. I’d never considered that Pam was being literal. It was food for thought and something to keep in mind.

“This one,” Felix said, pointing to the map. “It has an underground bunker. It seems to be the only structure that goes underground. That is if the map is accurate.”

“Satan gave us the map. It’s accurate,” I said, looking over at the compound and trying to figure out which building the map was referring to.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Martha grunted, looking at the trash magazine.

“You already are,” I reminded her.

She laughed. “You wanna hear somethin’ interesting?”

“Always,” I replied.

She waved the paper in my face. I didn’t want to touch it since it had been in her undies. “Guess who owns the rag mag?” she demanded.

“Which one?” Poosh asked.

“All of ‘em,” Martha said.

“I don’t know,” I told her, wondering why it made any difference.

“Guess,” she said.

“We don’t have time for this,” I shot back.

“Make time, Tits GlobeJugs,” she insisted. “It’ll make you more confident about our choices.”

That was a weird statement. I shrugged. “Is it a legit paper that owns them?”

“Nope.”

“Jerry Springer?” Poosh guessed.

“Nope! But good guess,” Martha told her.

“Hannah Montana, the star of the fabulous show that Augustus and I are obsessed with?” Felix tried.

“Nope!”

“That hot piece of man-meat, Simon Cowell?” Jane chimed in.

“Nope, but you’re right about that man bein’ hawt!” Martha said, fanning herself with the paper. She turned to Tracy, who, again, was smiling. “You got a guess, Tracy?”

“I do,” she said with a waggle of her tattooed eyebrows. “My guess is more of a logical deduction. What would a dastardly asshole who needed to keep his reputation intact do if he wanted to perform a selfless gesture without blowing his villainous cover?”

I wasn’t sure I knew where she was going with this, but I was willing to follow. “I’ll bite. What would this person do?”

“In my opinion—and remember, opinions are like assholes, everyone has them, and all of them stink on occasion—I think this wicked individual who would be pissed if he was caught being recognized for doing good deeds might just happen to own something filled with lies and a few very important truths… Since he can’t commit good deeds, wouldn’t it be interesting if he set someone else up to accomplish them with little to no trace back to himself?”

I grinned so wide my cheeks hurt. “Uncle Fucker owns the rags.”

“Bingo,” Martha said. “In the tiny, and I mean fuckin’ barely readable print on the back, it says the owner is Blade Inferno! That shady hot-ass gave us all the intel up front and made us figure it out.”

That was the way it was done in our world. I could only attribute it to everyone being older than dirt and needing to amuse themselves. However, there was nothing amusing about the end of the Vampyre species as we knew it.

“Mmkay,” I said, pacing back and forth. “We have the names—Charlton, Stephano, Josephine and Petro. It’s clear by the Immortal guards in the towers they have backup. We have the location. We know Lizard is in the bunker. I am choosing to believe that Ethan is with him.” The alternative meant he was dead. That wasn’t acceptable. “My guess is that the bunker is where they’re creating the Dhampirs. Hopefully, there’s only one.” It still made me ill to think that I might have to eliminate a teenager. I’d have no problem offing the assholes behind the scenes, but harming a child didn’t sit right.

“Right under the government’s nose?” Jane asked, perplexed. “I mean, wouldn’t blood-sucking’ Immortal killers be noticed by humans?”

“Fine point. Well made,” I said as my brain raced to make sense of senseless.

“It can happen,” Poosh said. “While pursuing my embezzling hobby over the last few decades I’ve learned that government agencies have no idea what other parts of government are doing even if they’re in the same building. There’s so much paperwork and red tape that no one wants to actually read it. It’s awesome! It made it easy to pilfer so much money without anyone figuring it out until it was too late. I’d be delighted to teach everyone how to misappropriate millions. It’s so much fun!”

“Okay, thank you, but no thanks. And I really think you should get some new hobbies,” I told her. “However, the part about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing is probably accurate.”

“I have a thought,” Felix said, staring at the map.

“Go ahead,” I told him.

“From the way this is drawn, it appears that every single building is connected by aboveground tunnels… except one.”

“The one with the bunker?” I asked.

“Correct,” he replied. “Who here can fly?”

I raised my hand along with Tracy. Martha and Jane raised their hands as well, but they were menaces in the air. If we needed flyers, they were not part of that plan. “Why?”

“I have a feeling that if we can see the structure from above, Augustus and I will be able to tell if it’s been glamoured to look like nothing or at the very least, less than what it is. That’s one of our gifts along with breaking codes.”

“Fucking genius,” I said, patting Felix on the back.

“I can cloak, but only for a short period of time,” Tracy offered.

“I’ll hold onto Felix and you take Augustus,” I instructed the little Vamp. I didn’t even bother to ask her if she could handle his weight. She was an ancient badass. I was convinced she could do anything. “We’ll stay close so the cloaking will cover all of us.” I turned to Martha, Jane. “Do the grenades have timers?”

“Hell to the yes, Bumps McBiggins!” Jane assured me.

“Awesome. How many grenades do you have?”

“Twenty,” Martha said.

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t even begin to imagine that they’d carried ten grenades up their asses each. Whatever. I was glad to have them. Pushing the thought away of how the bombs got here, I kept talking. “I want you two to take Poosh and poof to the other side of the compound. Lay out ten of the grenades twenty feet apart. Stay in the tree line so you aren’t seen. Set the timers to go off at one-minute intervals, starting ten minutes from the beginning of the mission. Haul your asses back here and make your way into the compound once the grenades start exploding. The guards will be occupied with the explosions.”

“Love it,” Martha said as she, Jane, and Poosh got ready to poof. “Where we gonna meet up?”

I looked at Felix. He checked the map. “The roof of the building is flat. All the rest are pitched. From where we stand, it’s in the second row of buildings. From the center point it’s the third building to the left. I say we meet on the roof and make our way into the building from above. We can eliminate any p roblems on the way down.”

“Works for me, motherfuckers,” Jane said with a grenade in each hand and a shit-eating grin on her wrinkly face.

I put my hand up. My eyes roved over my little army. We were all wearing wrinkled and ripped Prada. It wasn’t working for me. “Are you all cool if I outfit us in combat clothes? We’re kind of a hot mess right now.”

My people nodded, but, of course, the old bags had something to say.

“As long as my melons are free, I’m in,” Martha stated.

“What she said,” Jane added.

I could do that. With a wiggle of my fingers, we were all in black shirts, black combat pants and steel-toed black boots. Well, except for Martha and Jane, who were naked from the waist up.

“Let’s go blow some shit up!” Poosh squealed.

The gals poofed away. I turned to the rest of my posse. “You ready?”

I got a thumbs up from the boys and an eyebrow waggle from Tracy.

It was time to fly.