I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2) by Tony Monchinski Page A

“Say
hello.”
    “Not a good idea,” Halstead said as if to
himself.
    “Where’s the cigarette girl?” asked
Boone.
    Pomeroy laughed until Halstead’s stern glance
quieted him. “What? You and Wells...” Pomeroy waved his hand,
looking towards the ceiling. “It was funny.”
    “What are you, some kind of goblin elevator
operator?”
    “I’m a Hobgoblin mate.” The thing answered
with a thick British accent. “And I prefer the term liftman.”
    “Well, I think I seen everything now.” Boone
looked around the wood paneled cab. “Tell me somethin’ guv’nor.
Aside from bein’ one ugly motherfucker, what’s your secret
power?”
    Pomeroy raised its eyes in its head and
hummed out loud. The Hobgoblin remained impassive, seated on its
stool.
    “You Rainford’s pet or somethin’?”
    Halstead moved fast, the way vampires could,
stuffing the gag back into Boone’s mouth. “There.”
    The Hobgoblin actually thanked the
vampire.
    They wheeled Boone off the elevator and into
a short hallway. More wood paneling on the walls and ceiling. A
concrete gargoyle statue was set in a niche in the wall next to a
door. One of the vampires knocked on the door and as they waited
for it to open Boone watched the gargoyle, noticing how its eyes
seemed to be watching him. He kept looking at it when the door
opened and they wheeled him past and Boone would have sworn its
eyes followed him. He growled at it from behind the gag but they
were already inside Rainford’s quarters, another hallway traversing
a suite of rooms.
    Music suffused the Dark Lord’s quarters.
Boone couldn’t place it at first. It definitely wasn’t the
classical he would have expected. They rolled him through dark
shadows and into a lamp-lit study. Bookshelves lined the walls. The
furniture consisted of a settee, an upholstered chair and a writing
desk with a laptop booted up to a word processing program.
    Pomeroy and Halstead set the gurney up
straight, placing Boone in a vertical position. One of them removed
the gag from his mouth. Boone was thinking of things to say when a
voice spoke from the shadows.
    “I have invited you here to extend an olive
branch.” Rainford stepped from the dark, wearing a black silk
smoking jacket with a red velvet shawl collar. Boone didn’t see any
smokes, no pipe. Instead, the vampire had a brandy snifter in one
hand.
    “A what?”
    Rainford settled itself in the upholstered
chair, one leg crossed over its other. “I come in peace.”
    “You’re in a good mood you undead fuck.”
    Boone felt one of the vamps behind him move
in close—figured it for Halstead—heard Rainford say, “Please,” felt
it shift back into the shadows again.
    Rainford gestured with the brandy but made no
move to drink it. “I have cause for optimism.”
    “What the fuck do you want?”
    “I assure you, it is not what I desire. All
that in due time. Today there is something you will want,
and I am in the position to deliver it to you.”
    Boone didn’t take the bait. Over the speaker
system, Jeannie C. Riley was confronting the Harper Valley PTA.
    “Not interested? Very well, then, I
suppose—”
    “Oh just come out and say it already for
fuck’s sake. The fuck do you want?”
    “Again, I assure you, it is not what I—”
    “Okay, whatever. Shit . What do you
have for me?”
    “I want to give you the vampire that made
Kreshnik aware of your friends, thereby sealing their doom. I want
to give you the vampire that was in league with the man you called
Santa Anna. He calls himself Enfermo.”
    “Enfermo.”
    “It means sickness, disease.”
    “Great. Now I know its name.”
    “You are here that I may impart an address as
well.”
    “You give me that—you know I’m going to go
there and kill that thing, right?”
    “I would certainly hope so.”
    “Why?” Boone looked at the Dark Lord, looked
at him hard. “What’s in it for you?”
    “I have my reasons.” A screen saver of a
winged demon over a city skyline had