Again her mouth moved; this time it was a delayed sound, but it reached me. “Ambush! It’s a damn ambush!”

  I let out a deep breath, nodded, then said, “That doesn’t change anything.”

  Leading the charge, I put a hand to Basty and said, “Help me here, please?”

  Shouts sounded from within; the explosions and gunfire ceased, and the vision was strong enough that even I caught a glimpse of it—the whole building falling down, bursts of flames shooting up from fissures in the stone floor, and me, bursting in about three times as large as I actually was, covered in spikes.

  I could see how that would be fucking terrifying. I came in shouting, hoping that would add to the effect, and saw Jalee with blue wings of electricity lighting up the place, Milrae on the floor with lines of blood seeping out along the stone, and no sign of Ahlaksiz.

  The two ladies with the fake baby were gone, too. Or so I thought at first glance. Another look around the room showed half a skull lodged into the wall with bits of burning flesh. Holy fuckballs, I didn’t even want to begin to consider what had happened there.

  Jalee turned on me in a rage, green showing in her eyes, but I said, “It’s me!” while putting a hand to Basty and hoping he got the message. Soothing calm was needed. Either he did something, or my voice did the trick, because Jalee’s eyes returned to normal and she shot up and through the ceiling in an explosive blast.

  “Holy hellfire,” Kinara muttered, entering behind me at last.

  “You were right,” I said. “Ambush.”

  “I’ll fucking say.” Milrae pushed herself up with a grunt, then reached her claws into one of the bullet holes to dig it out. “And we’ll make them pay for it.”

  “Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered, going to her and wanting to help, but really not knowing how.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kinara said, kneeling next to the other lady. “Go, help them. I’ll do what I can here.”

  I frowned, flustered, but nodded. With a quick kiss to Milrae’s forehead, I turned and ran off as more sounds of gunfire started up. The shots were interrupted by a man’s scream and what I assumed was a cougar’s roar. I came hurtling around the corner to find stairs up and down; Jalee had apparently gone out a back door, while Ahlaksiz was in cougar form—clothes on the ground—in pursuit of a man who was shooting wildly at her.

  No more of my monsters girls were going to get shot on my watch. I summoned the sword, watched the blur, and threw myself into the room. One good strike sent the man’s gun-hand to the floor, blood squirting, and he screamed. I glanced around, clucking my tongue as I sensed something was off. Movement in the next room over told me someone was running.

  “Watch this one,” I commanded Ahlaksiz, then charged into the other man, slamming my shoulder into his side to pin him against the wall. He was clutching something in his hands, but his eyes went to the window, where two police officers could be seen making their approach.

  He used the distraction to throw me off. Even with my blur power, he managed to get a knee into my stomach and a punch to my head before turning and bolting toward the stairs.

  “That’s the one!” Ahlaksiz said in her human form, having returned to herself to get the words out. She was halfway through the doorway to the right, where I’d been a second before. Pinning the one-handed man down as she held his own pistol up under his neck was one thing, but an entirely different sight since she was nude.

  It only hit me then that she had been full cougar, which I hadn’t understood she could do. I knew she could conceal her ears and tail, but hadn’t taken her to be a full shifter.

  “Go!” she shouted, and as I went in pursuit, the shot went off. I hoped the man had been struggling, because otherwise, it seemed cruel. Then again, she might have been putting him out of his misery after I’d removed his hand.

  The man had thrown himself into an apartment across the street so I ran, even as the two cops shouted after us and gave chase. What the hell was I doing? Not long ago I’d been sitting behind a desk working on my creative pursuits and eating Doritos; now I was fighting in Tunisia while police tried to stop me. My life was fucking wild.

  I slammed into the door before it could close, nearly catching the man. He fell and rolled, entering a living room to our right.

  “Give me the… thing!” I shouted, unable to remember the name of it in the heat of the chase.

  He glanced back with confusion, hit the couch, and fell over the other side. I thought this was my chance, but when I leaped over, he was waiting there and caught me in the chest with his feet. With one fluid motion, he had tossed me over to hit my side on the wall; I collapsed to the floor in pain.

  The two policemen appeared in the entrance, but I rolled out of their line of sight to continue the chase. We went around the unit, through the doors back into the halls between apartments, then down the other side.

  A female police officer stepped into our path, and the man broke right, moving down more stairs. I checked, then leaped over the banister and went after him, landing on his back and causing the item in his hands to go clattering across the floor into the room beyond. We both went after it, the officer shouting something and coming after us in pursuit.

  I lunged, but something slammed into me, twisting my arm and pinning me against the wall. A glance from my peripherals showed the female officer, shouting at me in Arabic—or maybe at the man, I had no idea. She had me, but I saw it—the shiny, slightly glowing metal near the foot of the bed. The man was on his knees, searching, and had not yet realized where it had fallen, nor that my team wasn’t far off.

  I hated to resist the police, but what was going on here was bigger than anything they could deal with or understand. I sent a vibration out that caused her to release me; she stumbled back and fell to her knees with a long, heavy moan. Shit, I knew that type of moan—and it hadn’t been what I intended. I briefly glimpsed her, hand between her legs, eyes half-shut, squinting at me in confusion.

  That was a part of my power I would have to explore later. For now, I dodged for the metal, knowing it had to be the Iridant. Snatching it up, I clicked my tongue, ready for either the cop or the other guy to come at me, but sensed neither was about to. I must have been too quick for either of them, or the vibration had somehow affected the man as well. Either way, I was out of there, charging up the steps and back to ground level.

  Where was everyone? Back in the apartment across the street, I figured, but a quick glance around at the sound of glass breaking showed Jalee emerging through a window above, coming down toward me as her electricity faded. I caught her with only a mild shock, then shouted, “I got it! Let’s move!”

  Ahlaksiz came charging out with blood splattered on her nude body, clothes wadded in a ball and held tight in her arms. I put my hand to Basty, sending a mental note through him to show the others where we were. Helping Jalee to stand on her own, I was about to go back in when Kinara and Milrae pushed their way out.

  A policewoman emerged behind them with half of one of her arms hanging off. But she didn’t look the same—several eyes were emerging from the wound, more starting to poke through her skin on her cheeks. They were at the end of black, tentacle-looking limbs. I’d never been so disgusted.

  Jalee shot her with another blast of lightning, then stumbled, barely able to hold herself up.

  “That’s all of us!” Ahlaksiz said, and we started moving. I helped Jalee, with the other two stumbling along behind us.

  “What—what’re we supposed to do here?” I asked, completely amazed at what a shitshow this had become. We had the item, but considering our state, I wasn’t sure we could hold it for long.

  “Get us… to the market,” Ahlaksiz said, and I glanced around, getting my bearings and trying to direct us there. We came out on a street with cars that swerved at the sight of us, one crashing into another, likely at seeing Ahlaksiz’s bare ass.

  “There!” I said, seeing the market and leading the way. An old woman let out a yelp at the sight of us as she emerged with a bag of groceries, but we moved around her and to the back room. The butcher we’d bought food from earlier simply eyed us with confusion, then quickly followed.

  He gawked at Ahlaksiz a moment as she dressed, then turned around and folded his arms. “Be quick. What trouble is this?”

  “Monsters,” Ahlaksiz said.

  I opened my mouth to protest when Basty showed me a quick glimpse of the green skin and pointy ears concealed by the man’s ability to hide who he truly was. That’s why she had insisted on returning here! Damn, I had to wonder how many people in the world were actually monsters. It couldn’t be that many, right?

  “Which side are you on?” Kinara asked, finally letting Milrae stand on her own.

  “I choose no side,” the man said, glancing back. Once Ahlaksiz was mostly covered, busy fastening her shirt, he turned to face us. “This is my life. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “Keep it that way,” Ahlaksiz said, and she went to a row of back-room meats, grabbing a small pack. “Payment for the peepshow.”

  “Fair.”

  She laughed, finding a bill in her pocket and handing it over. “I was joking, old man. But I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  He frowned, eyed us all again, then said, “Don’t bring trouble around here. There are monsters in this part of the world, but they mostly leave me and mine alone.”

  “Reasonable request,” Ahlaksiz said, moving to the back door. She pulled it open, checked, then nodded for us to get out of the old man’s hair.

  I clicked my tongue on the way and nodded for Kinara to do the same. This was too risky to go out without some sort of advance alert system.

  “Wait,” the old man said, gesturing to Jalee. “Isn’t she going to dress?”

  Jalee frowned, looking down. Now that I was looking, he had a point. While she was in tatters, I hadn’t noticed how bad it had gotten since the last time I looked. Half her panties were showing and most of a nipple. She needed to get some flame or electricity-proof clothing at some point.

  The old man must’ve seen that we didn’t have options. He went to a corner, pulled up a white butcher’s apron like he was wearing—though not covered in bloodstains—and handed it to me to give to her.

  “Thank you,” I said, and did so. For some odd reason, it was kind of hot.

  With that out of the way, Jalee dressed and we took off again. Soon we were at the car, cloaking it and flying into the air. Ahlaksiz was fairly certain the airports and nearby docks would be heavily monitored by both local law enforcement and monsters, so she went southwest to avoid them.

  “We did it!” Jalee said once we were on the move. She leaned forward to wrap her arms around me. “I could kiss you. Oh, no reason not to!” She pulled me around and planted one on the lips, then pulled back with a laugh. “Wooo!”

  I grinned, leaning back to watch the city of Tunis disappear below, giving way to smaller suburbs and a desert in the distance.

  “I didn’t even know Tunisia had female cops,” I said with a chuckle, shaking my head. “Or that my vibration power could…” My gut told me to shut up, then. What was I thinking, admitting to a group of lovers that I’d given another woman an orgasm? Inadvertently, and I wasn’t one-hundred percent certain that’s what had happened… but it had sure seemed like it.

  “What’s this about your vibration power?” Ahlaksiz asked.

  “Nothing, nothing. I can’t believe the police were in on it.”

  “As you know with my daughter, monsters aren’t above getting into positions of power to get their way”

  “You think that was an ambush back there?” Kinara asked.

  Ahlaksiz nodded. “I noticed others watching us earlier, but didn’t put it together. Not until that attack happened on the scale it did. It could only go like that if the right people were notified and the situation put into place.”

  “But to risk losing this?” I asked, holding up the item.

  “Maybe not an ambush,” she admitted. “It’s possible they simply knew we would trace it, so they needed to defend it, and called for help. Either way, it’s ours now, and we have a good reason to go where they’d least suspect us, in case they have others on the prowl.”

  “And where would that be?” I asked.

  She grinned. “I think you’ll like it. Where would you not expect people on a mission to go? Knowing they are trying to get somewhere and on a deadline?”

  I scratched my head, not sure where she was going with this. “Disneyland?”

  “Close.” She laughed. “Out in the desert, there’s some of the newer Star Wars sets still active. I figured that they certainly wouldn’t expect us to go sight-seeing and since you’d probably—”

  Before she could finish, I leaned over to kiss her with excitement. This was the best news I’d heard all day—even better than getting this strange Iridant device.

  I was going to the set of Star Wars.

  5

  “So to be clear, which set is this from?” I asked.

  “Does it matter?” Ahlaksiz stared forward, clearly avoiding looking at me.

  “Judging by the way you said that, you know it kind of does.”

  “Mr. Lucas worked on all of them. He’s a legend, and a truly nice guy.”

  I frowned, wondering if that meant she’d known him. Such a thought was simply too overwhelming, so I cleared my throat, waiting for an answer.

  “One of the prequels, I think,” Ahlaksiz finally said with a sigh.

  “Great.” I groaned, having hoped it was the originals. She was right, though. Even if the prequels weren’t as amazing, this was still Star Wars.

  “What wars exactly are these from?” Kinara asked. “You have many wars on Earth?”

  I grinned, turning to her as if she were joking, then remembered she wouldn’t have known about the movies.

  “Where do I begin?” A shared look with Ahlaksiz showed she had been expecting this. For me, it was absurd that anyone wouldn’t know such amazing stories. I spent most of the trip going into the tales, including the prequels and more recent films. When they asked about Mr. Lucas, I tried to recall what I could, going into details about American Graffiti and his early projects, along with how Pixar had been part of his empire at one point, before it became what it was today. Of course, that started a whole new line of questions, including a side story about Steve Jobs and his role as CEO.

  “Don’t you make stories?” Kinara asked.

  “What?”

  “You had your computer, remember? Your… graphical novels?”

  “Graphic novels.” I nodded. “Sure, sure, but those are nothing on the level of Star Wars and all that.”

  “But you could make them into movies. That would be fun.”

  I scoffed. “It would be, but… not likely. Me?”

  “She has a point, actually,” Ahlaksiz interjected. “If we play our cards right with Rand Jacobs, the possibilities are endless.”

  “Jacobs?” I scoffed. “You mean the movie producer who ended up being the lamia who got us into this mess?”

  “That’s right. Those movie people work like this—tit for tat. Do something for them, they help you out.”

  My mind swelled with the idea of seeing some of my stories on the big screen, and I shook my head to cast the thought aside. It wasn’t going to happen. These thoughts were too fun! I leaned back, imagining such actresses as Kristin Kruek or Mila Kunis playing in my movies, then saw myself with my team of monster ladies walking down the red carpet.

  Imagining Kinara emerging from a limo made me chuckle—draped in a fancy gown, hair done, diamonds around her neck.

  “You’re in it now, aren’t you?” Ahlaksiz asked. “Sold?”

  “If she can make it a reality, I’m in.”

  “Try not to kill her during all of this, and we’ll see.”

  “Noted.”

  I leaned out to look at the desert below and noticed a city of light brown buildings and patches of green palm trees.

  “Tozeur,” Ahlaksiz said. “It’s a beautiful city, if we ever have time to come back for a vacation.”

  “Will we ever have time for that?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Not all of life is like this. Most of my years have been spent trying to figure out what to do next with my days.”

  “So you’ve probably been all over.”

  “Most of the world, yeah. You should have seen Venice, Italy in the old days. Now that was a fun city to explore.”

  To think of her exploring the world through the years put her in a new light. It was one thing to hear her say she was old, and quite another to imagine her in one of those Italian masks enjoying parties with people from the 1600s, or whenever that had been.

  We lowered the car to a dirt road that was lined with palm trees on one side, a river moving along it.

  “Why here?” Jalee asked, glancing around. “Is this the Star Wars stuff?”

  “No, but it’s early, and we don’t want to run into tourists there,” Ahlaksiz replied. “This is such a random spot, I can’t imagine how they would possibly find us.”

  “Isn’t that where you finish your sentence and we all turn to see some badass monster leering at us through the car window?” I chuckled, turning slowly to the window. Luckily, no monster there.

  “There’s another reason Tozeur was on the list,” Ahlaksiz admitted, pulling the car up to the side of a lone building with red walls and planks of wood for a roof. It was on the outskirts of the city, tucked away and almost hidden by the palm trees. “Stones.”

  “Stones?” I glanced around at the three large stones next to the building, and others along the river behind us.

  “Precious stones of protection. If you’re going to have a chance of summoning this monster, we’re going to want you protected.”

  “Except, I thought you said I’d be fine.”

  She grinned, getting out of the car, but paused to add, “You’ll be fine, because we’re getting you these stones.”

  “For the record, I think your stones would be enough,” Kinara said, surprising me with a gentle cupping of my package. “More than enough.”