Courts and Cabals 2 by G.S. D'Moore (best novel books to read .txt) 📕

had turned up nothing, and ground expeditions had a habit of getting turned around, lost, and coming back empty handed.

In that regard, the college-student summoners did better than most government expeditions; but they didn’t get Santa. A battalion of angry Keebler-elf looking monsters came through the summoning circle and rampaged through the town. These weren’t cheery-eyed toy makers who lived on hot coco and sugar. These little things wore chainmail and carried a set of poisoned knives.

The Vegas operation was the closest to the incident, so Vernon lost all but a handful of people. They were still cleaning up that mess, and so far, only a few dozen were confirmed dead with over two hundred injured; mostly fellow college students, faculty, and staff who were on campus for the holidays. People had started to trickle back into Vegas as things got under control, but Vernon only had about six people, in three different hotels, watching the entrances and exits to Caesars. They had LVPD SWAT on standby if they made visual confirmation and got a search warrant, but so far, they had diddly squat.

There was a knock on the door just as he was zipping up. He doubled check to make sure the camera was recording before capping the second bottle and rushing to the door. The door opened to reveal the tired-looking agent that was his surveillance partner. The guys eyes were bloodshot, and he looked like he hadn’t gotten any downtime since his last shift. From the horror stories Vernon heard circulating about the college op, the guy probably didn’t want to sleep. Nightmares had a way of fucking with your head just as much as sleep deprivation.

“Shift change,” he announced, and handed over a steaming hot cup of coffee. “Anything?” the guy went straight to the laptop and camera, barely glancing at the whiteboard.

“Nothing,” Vernon growled, as he spent a few extra seconds cleaning up the piss on the table. It didn’t bother the other agent, who poured a bunch of empty bottles out of a bag he brought with him.

Vernon collected his bottles, said something about calling him if the other agent saw anything, and left. He didn’t go far. They had the room right across the hall from the surveillance suite. That room didn’t smell much better, but there was no tinge of urine. The first thing Vernon did was take a shower. The warm water eased the tension and knots in his back and shoulders that even a shifter suffered from after two days sitting hunched over in front of a window. It felt good to get clean, but feeling refreshed was the last thing he wanted. He wanted to sleep for the next twenty-four hours before he went back on shift. He wanted to usher in twenty-twenty-one with a wet dream, or something better than the shitshow the end of twenty-twenty had been.

He was just getting under the covers when there was a knock on the door. “You’ve got to be shitting me,” he checked his phone, but there were no new messages from anyone.

Still, he couldn’t ignore it, so he slipped on a bathrobe and went to see who it was. The spyhole showed a back turned to him, and that was a red flag. He grabbed his colt from the bed and flicked the chamber to quad rounds before hiding it behind his back. He kept the security chain attached, not that it would do shit against anything that wanted in, but it would give him an extra moment to pull the trigger.

“I didn’t order any room service,” he stated as he opened the door a sliver.

“That’s too bad,” a familiar voice replied. “I thought you wanted some dessert.”

“Becky!” Suddenly, he wasn’t tired at all. He nearly broke the security chain himself as he struggled to get the door open. “Why do you look like a twenties, gumshoe detective?” he really didn’t care about the floor length duster as he wrapped her in a hug.

She hugged him back possessively, and that made him smile. “I got cleared from the hospital and gave your boss a call. She can’t hire me without going through the UN’s recruitment process, but she attached me as a law enforcement consultant because of my experience with the case.”

“That’s great, just great,” Vernon beamed, and took a good look at her.

She looked good. There was no residual trace of the pain the silver had inflicted on her. If anything, she’d put on some lipstick and eyeliner.

“We just gonna stand out in the hallway, or are you going to invite me in?” she raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” he ushered her into the room, and caught her sharp inhale at the stank. “Sorry about that. We haven’t had much time to straighten up, and the last thing we want is the cleaning staff poking around,” his cheeks heated with embarrassment, and he went around the room trying to pick up discarded clothing, and throw away take-out boxes.

While he hurriedly cleaned, Becky took a seat on the bed and thumbed on the TV. She tuned to one of the numerous New Year’s Eve shows. The pop icon of the week was performing their hit song at someplace near Time’s Square. It was basically the same as every other New Year’s Eve, just different faces and music. The big countdown clock in the bottom right said they were only fifteen minutes to the ball drop.

“I’ll need to slot you into the rotation. I’ll bump my guy so we can be teamed together, or do you want to work with someone else to avoid any appearance of favoritism?” he asked as he smashed a Styrofoam burger box to make more room in the trashcan. Despite his prodigious strength, even he could only fit so much mass into a space.

“I want you to open your Christmas present?” Becky replied, and there was something in her