Chapter 12, By C.J. Ruby

(These 3 chapters are short due to illness and the Holiday obligations of the narrator.  Please accept my apology; the story does pick up steam again in chapter 15.)

Gabriela sells the inventory and leases Figaro’s Curio Shop to Dedra the ghoul.  Dedra keeps the employees on.  Dedra likes the location next to Ike; it’s convenient to share one another’s libraries. 

Dedra brings in some new inventory.  Items like wolves-bane are now on the shelf. 

                        *     *     *

Uri’s Zell has come in and Uri takes Macair for a joy ride which includes some car acrobatics.

                        *     *     *

Max installs more gadgets for Jacek, like sleep gas.  Max notices some of his former work has been tampered with, presumably by the vampire.

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Gabi invites some of Flower Electa’s friends to dinner.  They are cultist who operate in the sex worker trade.  They help sex workers and addicts:  Free condoms and needles, safe houses, and stripper unions ect. . . .    One is a stripper named Sapphire.  Her partner is Dillon.

Flower asks Max to set up some accounts for them similar to the deals in Michigan and Colorado.

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Ike updates Median on the Austin Thorell situation.

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(2/1/93)  The whole gangs at Gators Bar partying when some ganger hoods walk in, Max recognizes them immediately.  They are the dudes he fucked with at Benito’s boat. 

Flower and Gabi pick up on Max’s tension and Flower begins giving Max a shoulder massage.  She is using it to build up Max’s Stamina.  Gabi sings along with the jukebox and offers Max a drag from here Russian cigarette.  She is supercharging Max’s mind for rapid thinking in case he has to fight theses guys. 

Enhanced, Max strolls over to the pool table to confront the bangers.  Macair follows close to back him up.

There is a fight.  Gabi scans one of the ganger’s minds and finds he’s afraid of bugs.  She causes him to believe that roaches fall from the ceiling and are crawling all over him.  He panics and the boys deal with him.  Macair shots one in the knee crippling him and Max explains to the leader that they aren’t welcome in laceName>YborlaceName> laceType>CitylaceType>.  They leave taking their wounded comrade. 

                        Chapter 13

Gabriela plans a charity dinner for the poor and indigent on the Feb. 9^th.  She also gives an endowment to the soup kitchens and shelters in the Tampa area. 

Bradford will handle security and she gets her friends to promise to help out as well.         

                        *     *     *

Macair using Entropy find that the two fumori will strike again at a night club in Miami (Nature’s Fury).

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Ursula goes out on a date with Jacek and again fails to seduce him. 

                   Chapter 14

The gang goes to Miami to stop the Fumori.  Gabi does a time ritual to see into the future at Nature’s Fury.  She sees the suspects and the targets it will happen the next evening. 

Gabi invites some of her friends that hang at Nature’s to go clubbing elsewhere on the 3^rd.   They always win the wet t-shirt contest anyway. 

While out with her pals Gabi sees the man in black type asking questions.  He is also using mind magic, probably to ascertain truthfulness.  She gets to a spot where he’ll question her.   He is asking about a coworker who has disappeared.  She tells him truthfully that she has seen the guy before, but it was over a month ago.  When he leaves she follows to get a license plate and then calls some clubs to see if he has been there as well - he has - looking for his comrade.

                           *    *   *

At Nature’s Uri, Max, Macair and Ursula ambush the murderers and dispatch them.  Latter they run into Gabi and she tells them about the missing guy.  They all return to the crime scene in the wee small hours of the morning and Gabi backtracks the car the killers were driving.  They find a hotel room with a wallet and some other items.  Then the go to the address in the wallet and find that the murderers had been living there as well.