“No…but I’ll live,” the man gasped, obviously in pain. He was wearing armor, but was so covered in nightmare slime that I couldn’t recognize him, but he recognized Mosh. “You!”

“Oh crap, it’s Ultimate Lawyer,” Holly said. “Sorry about earlier.”

“Save it. Let’s get the hell out of here first. I can sue the hell out of you later.” Mosh pulled him up. He pointed with one dripping hand. “My team’s over here. We could use some help—”

“No problem,” Holly answered.

“We could use some help because someone stole all our guns.” Embarrassed, Mosh handed over the Browning that still had slide-locked open. “You’ve got Mindy!” he exclaimed. “Come to daddy. Did the bad man hurt you?” Ultimate Lawyer promptly pulled a mag from his vest and reloaded. “If you so much as scratched her I swear that I will beat you to death,” he told Mosh nonchalantly. “Name’s Durant. This way.”

We followed the terrifying attorney to where the remaining members of the Paranormal Tactical team were holding off more melting super-porcupines with bar stools. They’d been split into a few groups, using rows of slot machines as choke points. Ultimate Lawyer broke off and began shooting one of them. I headed toward another of the creatures that had someone trapped behind a blackjack table.

Armstrong had managed to survive, and I had to hand it to the guy, even if he was a complete prick, he could fight. He was beating the monster over the head with a pipe, but the slimy beast didn’t seem to notice as it pursued him around the table. The two circled around each other, Armstrong was desperately trying to keep the table between them. He saw my approaching glow sticks. “Over here! Help!”

Because I really am a jerk, I simply couldn’t resist. “I’d love to, but this is way closer than a hundred yards.”

“Pitt…” Armstrong snarled, then had to duck as the monster came over the top of the table. I shot the monster in the back and it burst and sloshed the walls with nightmare slime.

“Clear!” Ultimate Lawyer shouted from the other side.

That seemed to be all of them. We were safe for a minute. “Clear,” I responded. Armstrong was on the floor, wiping goo out of his eyes. I extended a hand to help him up. “You can thank me later.” He was pissed, but he grudgingly took my hand. Mostly because it is really difficult to stand up when you’re wearing heavy armor and the floor is slippery. “Right now I need to find Stricken. I know he hired you, so I’m hoping you know where he was going when everything went crazy.”

“And why should I help you?”