War-N-Wit, Inc. – MeanStreet, LLC by Gail Roughton

smoke.
    “I don’t know, Mom. Stacy?”
    “Here!”
    “Where?” I groped through the fog.
    “Here!” Thank God. Her hand reached out and connected with mine.
    “Somehow that wasn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it’d be,” Mom said. “Aren’t we supposed to be under the stage or something? And isn’t that magician supposed to bring us back?”
    “ That’s the idea in most magic shows, yeah. But I’m afraid not in this one.”
    “And those cats! I almost had a heart attack when they just landed right on top of us while the door was closin’! Where are they?”
    Yes, where were they indeed? The smoke dissipated somewhat, still there, but cleared enough to see we were in an enclosure of some kind. Then it hit me. A holding cell. Sort of. It was the closest I could come, anyway. A denseness shimmered beyond the smoke. Like walls.
    I looked down. Over on the side, pa cing restlessly in the tendrils of fog. Two black cats.
    “Micah! You gotta lot of explainin’ to do, son!”
     
    * * *
     
    The guys paused outside the dressing room door.
    “…big idea, cutting a show that short! I get any demands for refunds, it’s coming out of your cut!”
    “Hostess was right,” Spike said. “Manager’s raising hell.”
    “Not as much as we’re about to raise. You ready?” Chad raised his eyebrow.
    “Let’s do this thing,” Spike affirmed.
    Chad laughed shortly. “Last time I heard that, we damn near got incarcerated for life, little brother.”
    Spike shrugged. “ Worked out okay that time.”
    Chad reached inside his jacket, pulled his gun from the shoulder harness and nodded. Spike threw the door open and stood aside.
    “ Now what the hell’s going on?” The manager turned and glared. He threw up his hands at the sight of the gun. “Whoa, guys! I’m not in this! You want him?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “You got him. Damn shyster, knew he was going to get some of you guys on his tail and lead ‘em back here. Probably trying to count cards or something! Just don’t leave any blood in here, okay?”
    Chad’s gun po inted steadily at Damien’s head, the sights moving to keep the target lined up as the magician backed up and edged toward the wall.
    “ You got it, man. Thanks.”
    “No problem.”
    “Let’s be sure it’s no problem, okay?” Spike handed over another set of folded hundred dollar bills. Very handy things to have in Vegas.
    “ Like I said, man. No problem. At all!”
    The manager shoved the bills in his pocket and tore out the door.
    “Vegas. Gotta love it,” Spike said.
    Chad cocked the hammer back on the glock. Very deliberately. Cliiiccck. Damien’s back tried to merge into the wall. He’d backed up as far as he was going to back. The gun sight still didn’t waver from the magician’s head.
    “Squawk…incoming…incoming…squawk!”
    Spike’s gun appeared from nowhere. “Un-huh, sweetheart, I don’t think so.”
    Irene sat back down on the chair she’d been about to lunge out of.
    “Okay, buddy. You got to the count of five to tell us where our ladies are.”
    “Uh, mate?” Harold piped up from his perch. “Little more here than meets the eye. You might want to unzip ‘em, you twig?”
    “Unzip?”
    “Like their skin. It unzips. They’re demons. B’lieve they called home base the Razkaal Dimension or some such. So I wouldn’t be so bloody certain the guns’ll work on ‘em.”
    “I’m willing to give it a try.”
    “You told the manager you wouldn’t leave any blood,” Spike reminded him.
    “I lied.”
    Bob Anson stared back and forth between the two men his daughters loved. “Who the hell are you guys and where did my girls find you?”
    Damien threw his arms up. “If you shoot, security’ll hear the noise!”
    “That’s what silencers are for. One, ” Chad counted. “ Three…. ”
     
    * * *
     
    “Ari, dear, you’re talkin’ to a cat. People’ll think you’re strange.”
    Trust Mom to focus on that when we were stuck in a fog bank in