Page 34 of Fury

His long, fang-like incisors showed in his wide grin, hence his nickname for the most famous vampire of them all. Plus, he seemed to stay pale as snow all year long.

When I first landed at the Flames clubhouse in Elk, Nebraska—a clubhouse that was a rented crumbling old farmhouse with boarded up windows, a newly installed bar and a pool table with a broken leg—Drac, who was Sergeant-at-Arms, and I had clicked from the moment we met.

He was friendly without being annoying, fair minded and practical, and had a wicked sense of humor without being a clown. Unlike me, he found the positive in most shit. I didn’t speak or laugh much, and Drac often tried translating my moods and expressions and usually got it right. He didn’t get put off by those moods, and he didn’t fill the silences between us with too much talk. I liked him. Other than Drac and the Prez, the handful of other members seemed pretty sluggish and indifferent about life in general.

We were in South Dakota at a night blast at the Crazy Horse Memorial. I was really looking forward to seeing this series of continuous mini-explosions blasting the granite of the mountain. Crazy Horse’s face was outlined in rock, a feat which had taken decades. His horse and his pointing arm still had to be fully cut. Holy hell, that was patience, dedication to a cause. Here was a thing of dynamic beauty and dignity wrought from a harsh mountain of unforgiving rock.

I really liked the Great Plains. The land in Nebraska and the Dakotas was different from Missouri. Maybe I’d never paid too much attention to Missouri, but now that I’d chosen to call Nebraska home, the area intrigued me. The riding was amazing from lush grasslands, dense forests and reservoirs, to the endless prairies and the ominous Badlands. Extremes for every mood were to be found in the Dakotas and Nebraska. Of course, you had to deal with brutal cold and snow, but it was worth it. I liked that extreme cycle of seasons. Clear markers of the passing of time. A lot of people consider the flat, open space of the area tedious, monotonous. Not me. I was impressed by the massive scope of the land. I felt bound to the earth as I rode it.

In the short while that I’d been here, I’d spearheaded cleaning up and renovating the old rundown farmhouse the chapter rented for a clubhouse. The Prez, Bill “Kwik” Kwikowski let me run with it, and I did. No more rusted holes, badly repaired fences, mildewed roof, crap plumbing. We got an up to date security system and new, higher fences. The one barn at the front of the property got upgraded into an industrial type warehouse to lessen any kind of curb appeal from passers by. I’d insisted on a real workout room, and we invested in new weights and barbells and a good bench. Continuing to push myself with the exercises and workouts Ryan had given me, I’d gotten stronger than I’d ever been before.

I volunteered for every shit job and for every difficult job. The men in the club were slightly in awe of me at first and kept their distance. Drac was the only one who treated me like a person, a brother, a potential friend, not some anomaly.

The first week I’d landed here, the VP had gotten himself killed running a red light, sliding in a patch of black ice, and crashing into a supermarket truck. The following week, Kwik had me ride shotgun with him and Drac to Montana for negotiations with clubs from out west he was dealing with, the Demon Seeds being one of them. They didn’t take our chapter too seriously, considering it an insignificant outpost of the Flames of Hell. I kept silent. My harshly scarred poker face did all the talking for me, inciting tension at that first meeting.

While everyone else did a lot of talking and bullshitting, I observed. I listened to what was being said underneath the words, behind the gestures. A different story emerged, as it usually did. I dug some on my own and found out about an alternate deal the Demon Seeds were trying to keep on the QT, shutting us out. Armed with this information, Kwik was able to make negotiations go his way.

Kwik liked my unassuming initiative. Drac liked my instincts. I got elected VP once we got back to Nebraska.

I knew that every effort I made, every job I completed, put me one step closer to getting Serena in my life. A life where no one would have any control over us.

Here at the Crazy Horse Memorial, I had a quick meeting with Dig Quillen, the Sergeant at Arms of the One-Eyed Jacks in nearby Meager, South Dakota. Dig and I had known each other from a run down to Colorado when I’d first gotten to the club in Nebraska. Whenever we’d seen each other, on the road, at bars, at concert venues, we were carefully friendly. Ordinarily, I kept my distance from members of other clubs, but the Jacks were located nearby, just over two hours away, so it paid to be “friendly.” Anyway, him I didn’t mind. He wasn’t a show off, and he didn’t have a chip on his shoulder or a big dick complex that he shoved in your face with every gesture or word that came out of his mouth. He didn’t talk shit and had a good sense of humor too, even if I barely let it show that I thought he was funny. He seemed respectful, and I liked that.

I’d tested his waters a couple of weeks ago. I had an emergency, one brother out when his old lady was having a baby, and I’d needed someone to fill in on a moment’s notice on a delivery to a contact in southwestern Wyoming and everyone else was in Ohio at a Flames assembly. I took the risk and called Dig.

My Prez was interested in pushing at the Jacks to see where they lay in the bigger picture in the area. They were a small club, only with another chapter in North Dakota and one in Colorado. Were they more useful to us cooperative or crushed? We knew the Demon Seeds had been making life and business difficult for them for years now. We could help them out for a price if they needed a big brother to step in. Always good to have alliances with smaller clubs against the larger ones.

I contacted Dig, and he got my job done. He didn’t tell his crew, and I didn’t tell mine. When it was done, I was impressed, and he got rewarded, but he refused the money. Instead, he wanted to stay in touch and be available for me in the future.

Today he’d requested two minutes of my time. I met up with him by the bathrooms at the Memorial an hour before the blast. Native American singing and drum beats filled the air from a show given by Native dancers on a small stage across the center as I made my way to the designated spot.

Dig was pleased to see me, and relieved, judging from his grin. He made a pitch—a network, an alliance between the Flames, his club, and the Broken Blades, another small club who were our neighbors in Nebraska.

“The three of us form a velvet network in our region through our territories. A network no outsider is going to want to fuck with and never will.”

The Jacks were obviously feeling the heat from the Demon Seeds these days.

I took in a long slow breath. “We don’t work with other clubs longterm, Dig. You know that.”

“I know. We like our independence, too, and want to keep it that way,” he replied. “Our clubs have been coexisting peacefully for years, respecting each other from afar. Why can’t our organizations work together if it’s mutually beneficial? We could keep it simple. Offer you a specific service at a discount, of course. I’ve noticed a few glitches here and there between you and the Blades. I could help.”

He gave me a few examples. Dig was observant, smart. He wasn’t talking out of his ass, making a play to get a backstage pass. He saw the road ahead was paved with Demon Seed intervention and pressure on the smaller clubs in our region.

“I’ll talk to my prez,” I said, giving Dig my standard response.

His shoulders eased, his odd light brown eyes flared. He was good with it. “Okay. I’ll wait to hear from you. You need anything in the meantime, let me know. I’ll take care of it myself.”

I believed him.

We tagged fists, and I took off, heading into the full crowd that had gathered for the night blast. I found Drac and Slade, another brother we hung with. Couldn’t miss his mohawk.

“How’d it go?” Drac asked, draining his can of beer.

“It went.” I took a long swig and wiped a hand across my mouth. “The Demon Seeds keep squeezing the Jacks, soon enough they’ll be squeezing the Broken Blades at some point, just to get in our face on our turf. Ultimately, Dig’s after our protection through an alliance.”

“You know Vig, the Seed’s VP, has been out in Cali hanging with fucking Russians. Could get messy,” said Slade.

“From what I hear, it’s already messy. Vig’s got some balls, man,” Drac said.

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