I’m Michele Hart, and here’s a creepy Halloween bite of my upcoming angels & demons/Sci-Fi Romantic Adventure, Gangbusters. It’s coming out November 1st at Bookstrand.com. Get your monsters at the pre-order price.
What’s a girl to do when she falls in love with a killer?
“When you see me drop a demon, you'll know I'm only getting started.”
- Danny's T-shirt
“My lover slays demons, and all I get is this lousy T-shirt!” - Faith's T-shirt***
[ This excerpt is rated R for nasty threats of punishment. Just awful stuff.
And that’s coming from the Good Guy. He means business. ]
Wherever Calderon went, he opened a gun shop, even on the planets where guns were outlawed. It was his screw-you to the authorities.
The I-Marshal had a screw-you for Calderon from the entire Alliance, hand-delivered.
Unseen, Danny paced into Calderon’s gun store, walked right past the gangster’s bulky guards and into the firing range, not needing to kill the guards to keep them from spotting his talk with their boss.
The oily Calderon stood alone in a shooting booth, firing a variety of firearms, both projectile and beam weapons. The mobster’s range time was the only time he was without his posse in attendance or women on his arm. The familiar smell of gunpowder made Danny smile. He watched for a while to see if Calderon was a good shot. He was. But it wasn’t going to help him.
When Danny felt like it, he walked up to Calderon unsuspecting, and he clocked the mobster, sending him to the concrete floor.
Minutes later, Calderon awakened to find himself hanging upside down a half-meter in the air at the target-end of the shooting range, his hands cuffed behind his back, his body wrapped in and suspended by the cables that operated the target-retrieval system of the range. His eyes rolled upward to find Danny’s gold I-Marshal badge jammed in his mouth and no one in the room.
No one visible.
“Go ahead,” Danny spoke loudly into the gangster’s ear. “Scream all you want.”
Calderon did. He screamed as much as he could, his mouth stuffed with a big eight-point star, and it wasn’t enough to penetrate the soundproofed range. He looked terrified. Good.
When the criminal scourge of planet Reigna wore himself out squealing like a pig, Danny plucked the badge from his mouth and wiped it on Calderon’s expensive suit. “I’m here for a few reasons, demon. First, to avenge the wholesale death, corruption, and misery you’ve caused the mortal worlds for millennia. I’m going to visit all your brothers connected, and I’m going to destroy every one of you.”
Calderon thrashed in his bonds to no avail. He only swung for his efforts like a pendulum blade.
“Secondly, I’ve been sent to avenge your wife’s murder, and that of her family.”
“Who sent you?” the gangster spat, livid to find himself in this vulnerable position.
“Faith Vedder. You remember her, the reporter who’s on you like…blasphemy on a devil’s lips. You met her today.”
The crook snorted. “I recognized her right away.”
“I thought you might have. That’s why I’m here to dismantle you. She actually hasn’t asked me to kill you yet. But she will. That you will be dead before she calls the shot is just a trick of time. Going against you.”
Calderon shouted again for his boys, and rocked himself in an effort to bring his body down from his bonds. When he tired, he gave up, still swinging from side to side.
“Keep calling for your buddies. I’ll pick them off like duck targets.”
“Why are you waiting to destroy me, Marshal?”
“I want some information from you. What do you know about a street manager on planet Valdeya called Freak? Lie to me, and I’ll call upon Metatron to get the truth from you. If you make me call upon my lord, I’ll cut your tongue out, and he’ll have a hard time understanding your answer. You don’t wish to give the highest of angels a difficult time, do you? He will consign you to the Fifth Heaven where your punishment will last an eternity. He has no mercy for corruptors.”
Calderon sweated like a turkey shown the chopping block. “Freak… He’d been a high-level employee of the Juicers. I’d sold him the job of killing Faith Vedder. He’d told me he’d taken the contract to Boss, who’d given it to Heretic.”
It didn’t surprise the I-Marshal. Contract killings were often passed through a chain of criminals to erase the true originator.
“Clearly, Heretic hadn’t done his job. I found him at the woman’s side earlier today.”
Danny disengaged his invisibility, removed the helmet and the cowl beneath it, and set them down beside him on the floor. The gangster sucked in a slow breath of shock to see him and put it together that his long-time associate from the black-market underground was an undercover I-Marshal.
“I always do my job. You’re not making any more plans for Faith. She’s fantasizing of your destruction now.”
“Is a third-rate reporter calling your shots now, Heretic?”
“Keep mouthing off, and I’ll put my C-breaker down your throat and cook you from the inside out. When was the last time you heard from Freak?”
The click of Heretic’s switchblade rushed the monster into saying, “Weeks ago.”
“Before or after Boss’s crew got hit on Valdeya?”
“Before. A week before, I’m sure of it. I’m guessing Freak died in that hit.”
Heretic knew Freak had survived his destruction somehow, and he knew Calderon lied.
“So you didn’t kill Faith Vedder…and you’re screwing her now… Isn’t that against I-Marshal rules?”
“Don’t provoke me, demon. I’m not a man of limits.”
The gangster’s vision roamed the target range and his position in it. “Are you planning some shooting practice on me?”
“What good would it do? We both know that won’t end your sick existence. You’ll just regenerate in a day or two in that body. Unless I give you a thorough destruction.”
Calderon nervously chuckled, his peace disturbed. “You’ve a bit of a reputation as a torturer, Heretic. Wouldn’t you rather take your anger out on me and let me live, giving you a source of information?”
“I’d like to take my anger out on you. Especially since I saw you put your grubby demon lips on Faith today, attempting to defile her. I’d carve my initials in your scaly chest for that. Maybe force you to transform completely, let your wings sprout…so I can slip my blade beneath them and cut them from your demon back. Carve the horns from your demon skull. Pull the fangs from your demon face.”
Calderon shuddered, probably imagining himself stripped of his evil tools.
“But letting you live for what little info you could provide violates my mission to destroy you and your kind. I’ll do what I must to end your existence. By the way...” Heretic lifted the gold chains hanging around Calderon’s greasy neck with his blade. “I arrest you in the name of the Draco Alliance. Now it’s official.”
“Stop pretending to be a cop, Heretic,” Calderon growled. “You’re formed from the same dark and wicked flame as me…son of fire.”
“I guess it’s in my nature to see you suffer.”
“It’s a sin you love too much.”
***
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Gangbusters by Michele Hart
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Available November 1st at BookStrand.com ISBN# 1-61034-926-1
Consider pre-ordering to get 15% off! Ka-ching!
Buy Link: http://www.BookStrand.com/gangbusters
Read and live an adventure.
Have a thrilling day,
Michele Hart
Paranormal/Sci-Fi Romance Author
~ Walk Another World ~ http://www.ILoveShape-Shifters.com/
Paranormal/Sci-Fi Romance Author
~ Walk Another World ~ http://www.ILoveShape-Shifters.com/
2 comments:
That's a lot of action - I like it. Even though there's a lot of fantasy and special powers in use, the scene still felt believable.
Love the tee shirts! lol Great excerpt. Congrats on your upcoming release!
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