Beast (MC Fables #1)

Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

B EAST

The girl is dead and cold on the wet cobblestones. She’s slumped against the dumpster. Her eyes are half-open, an odd crystal blue color, and staring lifelessly out at nothing. On her lap is a baggie of powder with our damn logo printed on the side.

I feel the rage unfurl inside me.

The piss-colored powder tells me it’s the synthetic phantasia that’s made its way onto our streets.

Crouching beside the dead girl, the medical examiner, Dr. Beaver, is checking her body temperature.

Lars and I stand with the sheriff, a look passing between us. Another dead body. Another baggie of fake phantasia.

“Who found her?” I ask the sheriff.

“Garbage truck. About an hour ago,” he says. “Came to empty the dumpster and found her.”

I look at her. Jesus, she looks barely out of her teens. “Do we know how long she’s been here?”

“She’s been dead about six hours,” Beaver says, rising to his feet. “Looks like acute drug intoxication.”

“Fucking fake phantasia,” I mutter.

I cast an eye around the alleyway. The stench of piss and puke is heavy in the air.

“Looks that way. I’ll have a more conclusive answer once we get her back to the morgue and run some tests.”

“Let me know. And send me a sample of whatever the fuck is in that bag.”

“Take the bag. I’ve got enough material around her nose and mouth for testing, and I’ve already taken a small sample from the bag just for comparison.” He looks down at the slumped girl, pity written all over his face.

Giving me the evidence is breaking protocol. But the Knights, the Sheriff’s Department, and the Medical Examiner’s Office have a unique relationship. One that lets us handle things a lot faster than protocol ever could.

Beaver gives me a remorseful nod and walks away to talk with one of his site technicians. They’ll finish their forensic examination of the scene before taking the girl away.

Sheriff Coulter bends down and picks up the bag of dope from her lap and hands it to me. “What are you planning to do with it?”

I’m going to have Opie test it against the last bag to see if it’s the same thing. I want to know what has made its way onto our streets.

“I want to see what the fuck we’re dealing with,” I say, a cold unease churning in my gut.

We know Beaver will run his tests. But Opie is quicker than any government department.

Sheriff Coulter removes his hat. “I’m not going to beat about the bush here, Beast. I need your help. I don’t want this fake phantasia getting out of control. The General had two overdoses admitted last night.” The General is the St. Boniface General Hospital. “And a deceased male was brought into the Medical Examiner’s Office this morning. Beaver confirmed it was a drug overdose. Whatever this shit is, it’s getting worse. We need to get on top of it. As sure as the sun rises, Mayor Boney will be breathing down my neck when he hears about it, and that means it won’t be long before he’s breathing down yours. He will blame you for this.”

“Let him come for us.”

“You guys don’t need to give him another reason for him to keep turning this town against you.”

He’s right. Mayor Boney has a hard-on for trying to run the Knights out of St. Boniface. So far he’s been unsuccessful. But he’s a determined fucker, and he’ll take advantage of this and use it against us somehow.

“Don’t you worry about the mayor. I can handle him.” I think about Belle waiting for me back at the clubhouse. I nod at the dead girl. “The Knights will do what we can, you have my word.”

I have a good relationship with Sheriff Coulter. I let him do his job and he lets me get the fuck on with doing mine. Which is fixing what’s broken in this town by any means I see fit.

We both look up when Lars pulls into the alleyway and climbs off his bike.

Before I can walk away, Sheriff Coulter stops me, turning his back on the scene so no one can hear him. “I found a low-life piece of shit in one of the tunnels two nights back. Neck broken. Had the words NOT IN SB carved into his guts. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

I give him a blank look. “Not a clue.”

“Beaver says someone broke his neck manually. Said it must’ve been someone strong. With big hands.”

“Still no clue what you’re talking about.”

Sheriff doesn’t look convinced but doesn’t press for more. “Turns out he was bottom feeder who liked to traffic little girls.”

“Sounds like someone did us all a favor,” I say as Lars joins us.

Sheriff Coulter nods. “I’d like to thank him, whoever he is. One less asshole in the world.” He puts on his hat. “I’ll keep you boys posted.”

He walks away, and I turn to Lars and point to CCTV cameras across the road from the alleyway. “I want the footage from those cameras. I want to see when the girl came in here and if she was with anyone.”

“I’ll get Bram onto it when we get back to the clubhouse.”

Leaving the scene behind us, we walk toward our bikes.

“Wanna tell me about the other girl?” Lars says.

“What other girl?”

“The one screaming bloody murder at you in the clubhouse last night.”

“You heard that?”

“Yes, because I have ears.” He gives me a sideways glance. “She was pissed at you. Is she the reason you’ve been disappearing lately?”

“Something like that.”

“You found yourself a woman? Why is this the first I’ve heard about it?”

“There was nothing to tell,” I say, removing my keys from the breast pocket of my cut.

“Last night sounded like there was plenty to tell. Who is she?” His eyes gleam with mischief and the filthy smile he gets when he sees something he likes slides across his face. “She sounds like a screamer.”

I lift an eyebrow. “That’s my fiancée you’re talking about.”

He stops walking. “Fiancée? What the fuck? You telling me you’re?—”

“Yes, I’m getting married.”

“Since the fuck when?”

“Since she and I discussed it last night.” I swing my leg over my bike.

“You haven’t so much glanced at a woman since Jennifer. What’s special about this woman that I’ve never met? She got a magic pussy or something?”

I narrow my eyes at him. It’s a warning to back off. He shakes his head and climbs on his bike.

“Her uncle owes a debt to the club and has no way of paying it off. I need a wife. She’s single. See where I’m going with this?”

The comprehension registers on his face. “This is the girl Gaston attacked. So not a love match then.”

I slide on my sunglasses. “Far from it.”

He actually looks disappointed.

“Do you think this getting married is a good idea, right now?”

“It’s now or fucking never.” I don’t tell him I’d prefer fucking never.

“Then can I suggest you do it immediately.” He glances over his shoulder to where the girl sits lifelessly on the cobblestones. “You and I know shit is about to hit the fan. The club needs you focused. Marry the girl now, before the bloodshed begins.”

He's right. I need to deal with the Belle situation swiftly so I can focus on dealing with the Unhinged Psychos. Because right now Belle is a distraction, and I can’t afford to be distracted.

Hitting the ignition, my Harley rumbles to life. Lars does the same, and we both ride off into the afternoon sun.

When we arrive back at the clubhouse, Gambit is waiting in the underground garage for us.

“Beast, you’re needed in the security room, there’s something you need to see.”

He must’ve seen us approach on the security cameras.

“It will have to wait.”

I want to get the sample to Opie so he can take a look at it immediately. In charge of overseeing the phantasia operation, he’s an experienced chemist and will be able to pull this fake shit apart so we have a better understanding of what we are dealing with.

Gambit looks uneasy. “Yeah, this particular situation can’t wait. It’s about your guest…”

Of course it is. Five minutes in the clubhouse and she’s already a thorn in my side. Even last night when she backed down, I knew the fight hadn’t left her.

“What has she done now?”

“It’s not what she’s done but what’s she’s doing,” Gambit replies.

“Fine. Show me.”

Lars and I follow Gambit out of the garage and through the clubhouse and into the security room.

Because of who we are and what we do—not to mention the people we piss off—our security is state of the art. Everything is monitored in the security room near the front of the castle.

It’s where I find Bram sitting in front of a bank of surveillance monitors, each one of them live streaming from the many cameras installed around the property. He’s focused on one in particular where Belle is attempting to climb out the second-story window of her bedroom. There is no balcony. No conveniently placed lattice. No pergola roof to jump onto. Just a frail drainpipe that should have been replaced decades ago.

Christ, is she really going to shimmy down the drainpipe?

“She’s been sitting on the edge for the past ten or fifteen minutes,” Gambit explains. “I didn’t think she would attempt the climb, but clearly I underestimated her.”

Lars sits down in a chair and puts his boots on the table. “So this is the screamer,” he says and I throw him a warning look which he ignores. “I like her, she has spunk. Not to mention balls, how high is that window?”

“Thirty feet,” says Bram, shaking his head. “She’s going to break her neck.”

Lars whistles as Belle reaches for the drainpipe. “Be still my fucking beating heart. Look at her, she’s a regular little escape artist.” He turns his head and gives me a shit eating grin. “Your old-lady-to-be is going to keep you on your toes, brother.”

Bram looks at me. “You’re marrying this girl?”

“Yes.”

Bram’s eyes shift back to the monitor. “Does she know?”

“You should probably go save her before she hurts herself,” Lars adds.

“She won’t hurt herself,” I say confidently, trying to keep the smile from my lips as Belle slides down the downpipe with ease and lands on her feet.

“How long are you going to let her believe she actually has a chance of escaping?” Lars asks.

“She doesn’t believe she’s going to escape,” I say fighting the warmth spreading through my chest. “This is her trying to prove a point.”

“Oh yeah, what point is that?” Bram asks.

“That despite whatever I throw at her, she is no pushover.”

Lars smirks. “I just fell in love with her a little bit more.”

I hand him the bag of fake phantasia. “Get this to Opie. I’ve got an old lady to wrangle.”

He laughs. “Good luck, brother. I think you just met your match.”