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  Perfect Strangers

  Published by Jan Stryvant

  Copyright 2017 Jan Stryvant

  Copyright Jan Stryvant 2017

  Cover Credits: eBook Launch (http://ebooklaunch.com/)

  No part of this eBook may be reproduced in any form without expressed, written consent from the author. The material in this story may feature graphic depictions of a sexual or adult nature and is intended for a mature audience only. All characters in this story are fictional and of the legal age of consent for any activities they engage in. Any resemblance between characters, places, or things in this story and people living or dead, actual places, or events, is purely coincidental. It's fiction, I made it up.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be copied and given away, or copied and sold, to other people. Got that? No copying, please! If you would like to share this book with another person, it would be really nice if you purchased an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use, then please consider purchasing your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  #59327A

  Jan Stryvant Books:

  The Valens Legacy

  Black Friday Book 1

  Perfect Strangers Book 2

  Over Our Heads Book 3 (in Oct)

  Shadow

  Saturday

  Sean was standing at the counter at the McDonalds on North Virginia, just across the street from the casino. It was a little after two, and he'd been woken up by his hunger. Neither of the girls was there, and he was hesitant to use his phone. So he decided to go out and get some food, before he passed out or something. Apparently using magic burned up a lot of calories.

  Besides, it was Saturday, and being spring break, Reno was packed with college kids looking to have a little fun. With that kind of crowd, he was sure he'd be able to lose himself easily enough.

  He had ducked into the Silver Legacy on the way there, figuring on using its wards to throw off anyone who just might be looking for him. Then he'd run across the street, made his order, paid, and he figured he'd be back into the warded area within five minutes, ten minutes tops.

  The guy at the counter had just finished handing him the rather large bag with all of his burgers in it, when his eyes got wide and Sean just instinctively dodged left as the guy silently crumpled to the floor.

  Sean cut a hard right next, running through the dinning area and then dropping his shoulder he just rammed the door to the kitchen hard, breaking it open and turning left again, he ran for the back door.

  He could hear footsteps pounding behind him, there were people giving chase, how many, he had no idea.

  Hitting the back door and coming out into the alley, he turned to the south and started to run as hard as he could, the bag with the burgers still held in a tight grip in his left hand.

  He'd kill them before he gave up his damn lunch!

  Glancing back behind him as he cut around the back of the Thunderbird, Sean saw four men in pretty typical outfits chasing him: Slacks, light jackets that were open and flapping in the breeze, exposing some rather strange looking holsters. Wands?

  They were all probably early twenties, and they were already panting hard. Definitely not the physical fitness types Sean guessed.

  Checking the traffic Sean cut across Fourth Street, horns blaring at him as he dodged right through the traffic, vaulting a car hood. Slowing down a moment, he grabbed a burger out of the bag, and peeling the wrapper he dropped it and started to eat as he picked up speed again, going south down Virginia, dodging in and out of people.

  Halfway down the block, he stopped and looked behind him. Two more had joined the chase; a car was trying to make a u-turn in the traffic back in front of the McDonalds, one of the doors swinging closed as the drivers of the other cars signaled their displeasure at the idiot making a u-turn in traffic.

  Turning back to run south again, Sean finished his burger quickly, then pulled out another one and tossing that wrapper on the ground Sean then cut a sudden right, dodging through traffic again on Virginia, cutting in front of a bus, and giving the driver a heart attack he was sure.

  Sean slowed down a bit; he wanted to be sure they saw him and followed. It was time to teach yet another harsh lesson to these people. Glancing back, he saw one suddenly point as they were milling around looking for him, and they all took off again after him.

  Smiling, Sean picked up speed, sprinting across Sierra Street with no honking horns but several cars locked their brakes, screeching to a stop. It was time to put all of that hard-earned local knowledge to use. When he got to West, he crossed that too and then very visibly jumped up and grabbing the chain link fence by the railroad tracks, he flipped over the top, and quickly climbed back down.

  As soon as he was out of sight, he dropped the twenty feet down to the tracks below. Unwrapping another burger, he dropped the wrapper for that one in plain sight between the tracks and then slowly jogged back east, into the tunnel that the train went through in the center of town. There were access ways down here, and one of them led up into the El Dorado casino. When Sean had bussed tables at the buffet there as a high school student, he'd learned about them when the other bus boys wanted to go hide from the bosses and get stoned on their breaks.

  Sean wondered if scrying spells worked through dirt? There was quite a bit above him now, he'd have to ask Jolene about that. He'd also have to do something about this whole scrying thing. Hopefully there was a spell in one of those books someplace he could use.

  Stopping near the metal access door he needed, Sean slipped his shoes off, unbuttoned the first few buttons on his shirt and shrugged out his vest. Shifting, he popped the rest of the burger he'd been eating into his muzzle and then grabbed the door handle with one hand while placing the other on the wall next to it and with a soft growl he slowly exerted pressure and pulled it open, the locking bar creaking loudly as it bent and then gave way, allowing the door to swing open.

  Pulling out another burger, Sean made sure the wrapper for this one went back into the bag, and then he hunkered down, lying prone next to the tracks to see just what they'd do.

  Sean didn't have long to wait, two of the ones that had followed him out of the back of the McDonald's floated down, landing rather clumsily by the discarded wrapper.

  "He went in there! Go block off the other side!" one of them said into his phone, while the other one peered into the darkness.

  "Now what?" the other one asked softly. Sean thanked his lycan hearing, they might as well have been yelling, considering just how quiet it was down here.

  "We go in and get him. He's just a kid, what's he gonna do? Hell, after that drop I'd be surprised if his legs aren't broken."

  "Then why didn't the Litho's get him?"

  "Because he had a guardian, that's why. But the Litho's killed him," the other one muttered as they started forward. "I don't know why the hell you're so scared, no one's gonna care what happens to him. The kid's a wimp, a video gamer."

  "I don't know, he sure ran pretty fast."

  "And kept slowing down while stuffing his face," the other man laughed.

  Sean eased his pistol out and sighted on the one with the phone.

  "You guys there.... Damn, lost my signal."

  "Maybe we should wait until they cover the other end?"

  "Dammit, Johnson. Do you want to face Harkins and the rest and tell them we let some mundane kid get away? Now shut up!"

  "Then why hasn't anyone else gotten him?"

  "Because up until now, no one else has tried, obviously. Do you really think this kid is smarter than we are? He was in a fucking McDonalds!
Really now...."

  Sean pulled the trigger, and hit the guy in the chest; the look of shock on his face only lasted a moment as Sean shot him a second time and then switched to Johnson who had jumped at the loud roar of the gun in the enclosed tunnel. Sean shot him twice too, and then turned to look the other way as both men dropped to the ground, very dead.

  Sean grumbled and wished for ear plugs as his ears rang, but interestingly enough the ringing quickly subsided, and a minute later he watched two men drop down at the other end of the tunnel, three hundred yards away.

  Sean waited patiently and ate two more burgers as the men approached. These two were a bit more wary than the other two had been, and both of them had something in their hands. What they were holding, Sean couldn't tell for sure, but they obviously weren't pistols of any sort.

  "I don't see anyone," one of the two hissed softly as they got closer, "cast a light spell, we should be able to see Johnson's and Simms' outlines by now!"

  "We can't use magic! What if someone sees us doing it? They probably followed the kid through an access way or something."

  "We're in a tunnel, smartass; no one is going to see anything."

  "Oh, yeah," he said, and as Sean watched he put whatever it was he was carrying back into his holster and then raised his hands and made a gesture. Realizing that he was about to be exposed, Sean shot the one who wasn't casting first, and then immediately shot the other one as light suddenly blazed into the tunnel.

  Swearing at the suddenly brightness, Sean closed his eyes, trying to hunker down as close to the ground as he could. When the ringing in his ears stopped, he opened his eyes and looked down the now well-lit tunnel. Sean could see that he'd only wounded the second one, the one that had cast the spell, and who was now trying to crawl back they way they'd come.

  Shifting back into his human form, Sean set the bag of food down and carefully started walking towards the man, gun pointed at him as he did.

  "You murdered my father," Sean said, and the man suddenly rolled over and tried to draw what looked like a taser from the odd holster under his jacket. Sean quickly stepped on the man's arm, pinning it to the ground before he could get his weapon out.

  "You killed my best friend," Sean growled down at him.

  "That wasn't us! That was somebody else!" the man said, eyes locked on the gun in Sean's hand.

  "You kidnapped my mother, probably killed her too," Sean's voice got louder and his hand tightened on the pistol's grip

  "No! That wasn't us! We didn't do that!"

  "And you were going to kill me too, weren't you?" Sean said, staring down the sights of his pistol as he aimed it at the man's head, thinking about all those people that had died yesterday. About what had been done to his family. About what they were going to do to him the moment that they got their hands on him.

  Sean started to snarl as the anger rose up inside him.

  The man's eyes got wide and his left hand rose, "Ra...."

  Sean shot him in the head. Three times. He would have shot him four, but the slide had locked open.

  Changing magazines, Sean re-holstered his pistol, picked up his brass, and looked at what he'd done. Sean hadn't let his lion pull the trigger on this one, oh no, this time he'd pulled the trigger himself.

  Shaking his head he took their weapons, went and got the weapons from the other two, which also looked to be some sort of taser like device, probably magical. Then he went back to the door and picked up the remaining six expelled cartridges and put them all in his pocket. Putting his shoes back on and picking up his bag of food, he used his vest to grab the handle of the door and pulling it open, he went inside.

  There were at least three more of these guys looking for him, but Sean doubted that they knew the back corridors and the basement halls like he did.

  It took Sean a good ten minutes to make his way back up into the casino proper, and he made sure to dodge the security cameras that were along the route. Another thing he'd learned from the other busboys. Not like security was all that concerned with the goings on of the maintenance staff or the cooks, the crimes they were worried about took place out on the gaming floor or in the cashier's booths.

  Ducking into one of the employee bathrooms, he locked himself in one of the stalls and took the time to finish off his lunch. He was still hungry and they couldn't scry him in here, so why rush?

  Once he'd finished eating, Sean crumbled the bag up and tossed it and the dead men's weapons into one of the trashcans and then took a long drink of water from one of the faucets. There were three more guys, if they were still looking for him. He had seen two of them. He'd have to keep his eyes open and move carefully.

  Leaving the bathroom, he moved down the hall to one of the entrances that led back to one of the public hallways. After peeking out the door and making sure that no one in it looked like they were looking for anybody, Sean slipped out and joined the crowd.

  Moving down the hallway, he stopped when he got to the transition from one casino to the next, and peeked quickly around the corner.

  There was someone standing there, watching the people going by, and he looked a lot like one of the two from the car.

  Stepping back, Sean retraced his steps. There was a gift shop, the areas between the casinos were full of them, stepping inside he saw a rack of sweatshirts. Grabbing one that said 'Go Pack' and had a wolf's head on it he quickly paid for it and left the store.

  Once outside he stuck his vest in the bag they'd given him, and put the sweatshirt on. He'd grabbed one way too big for him, but right now that worked out well, the gun under his shirt would definitely draw unwanted attention without his vest on.

  Moving back up to the corner, Sean waited for a large gaggle of people, once he got past the transition area, which actually was a wide archway over the street below that had been stuffed with slot machines, Sean could duck back into a service corridor.

  Spying a group of drunken college kids, Sean slipped into the middle of them, slouching down as they walked past the guy keeping an eye out for him. But as they passed, Sean noticed that there were two other people there now, people he didn't recognize, and they were arguing with the first man.

  What they were saying, Sean couldn't hear over the noise, but he'd seen enough turf fights to know one when he saw one, and the nearby security guard made it clear that security had seen it too.

  This was rather curious. Were they from another organization? Or was this an internal disagreement?

  Leaving the group who had suddenly noticed their new member, Sean ducked back down into a service corridor and decided that right now, he didn't want to know.

  Consequences

  Sean sighed and climbed the stairs, two flights a floor, back and forth, as he thought about what had just happened. His world had truly gone to hell, utter and complete hell. Just setting foot outside, anywhere, was a deadly risk. He wondered about the poor guy back at that counter, was he dead? Was he okay?

  Sean shook his head, and then there were those four guys he'd just killed. Oh, he didn't doubt that they deserved it; they intended the same for him he was sure. Like it or not, this was a war now. They weren't going to go away; they weren't going to leave him alone. The only way out of this was to win it.

  Now if only he knew just what the hell he was fighting for.

  Coming out of the stairwell onto the top floor, he found both Roxy and Jolene were waiting for him. The relief on both of their faces was obvious as they rushed over and hugged him.

  "Where were you?" Jolene asked.

  "And why does your gun smell like you've been shooting it?" Roxy growled, looking a cross between worried and angry.

  "I got hungry, so I went to McDonalds," Sean said guiltily while blushing.

  "You went to McDonalds and had lunch?" Roxy said giving him a rather dark look.

  "Well, originally I was just going to pop in, get the food, and bring it back here. I figured I'd be outside of the casino wards for a few minutes at the most, but ther
e was a umm," Sean sighed, "I got jumped at McDonalds and had to make a run for it."

  "What!" Roxy said, shocked. Even Jolene looked surprised.

  Sean nodded, "I guess they have the area staked out or something. I don't think I was in there five minutes before they were on me."

  "How could you do something so idiotic? Tell me what happened!" Roxy demanded.

  Sean stood up straight and looked down at Roxy, "I was starving. No one was here and you didn't leave a note."

  Roxy opened her mouth, and then suddenly realized that a cheetah trying to chew out a lion probably wasn't the smartest move for the cheetah. Even if the lion loved said cheetah.

  "I'm sorry, Sean. But you scared me. A lot. I was afraid something bad had happened to you."

  Sean nodded and gave Roxy a hug. Sure, he realized now that yes, it was an idiotic thing to do. So why had he gotten so offended?

  'Hey, I thought I told you no growling at our Roxy?'

  'We didn't growl' the thought came back, 'and if we don't maintain our dominance, she won't respect us.'

  "I didn't think they'd be on me so fast," Sean sighed and wondered if maybe his lion had a point, Roxy hadn't pulled back from him, in fact she was leaning into him maybe a little harder now. "Obviously I made a small mistake."

  "Where are they now?" Jolene asked.

  "I ambushed four of them," Sean said, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed.

  "That doesn't sound good," Roxy said looking up at him.

  "Well, for them it wasn't," Sean agreed and told them what happened. He tried to recall as much as possible about what he'd heard them say, and remembered to mention his question about scrying people underground.

  "The one thing I can't figure out," Sean said, after he'd finished, "is why they keep trying to engage me in small groups. They keep acting like I'm some dumb kid, even after everything that's happened to the ones sent after me so far."