CHAPTER 2: A SMALL PROBLEM

Situated in the closet, I peered through the cracked doorway to watch the action.  Nobody seemed to care that I didn’t come back.  With this group of testosterone personified, I don’t think the blood was in their brains anyhow.  Hotshot and his little buddies were getting impatient waiting for their company to show up.  The bartender shot nervous glances towards my general direction, occasionally.  I was about write this off as a waste of time and come out when another car pulled up to the bar.  I could see the headlight glare into the bar for a moment, and then turn off.  Car doors slammed, and less than a minute later, the tavern door swung open again.

Hotshot was not exaggerating, it seemed.  These girls were not “hotties.” They were absolutely beautiful.  I counted three.  A tall Asian girl appeared to be the lead.  Apparently, she belonged to Hotshot, because he approached her in an instant.  I heard him call her “Angel,” though I wasn’t sure if that was her name or just a really bad pick up line.

“I told you I’d bring friends,” Angel spoke.  Surprisingly, Angel had an English accent.  Or maybe it was Australian.  I was never any good with that.  She was flanked by two other seductresses, a tall blonde, who she introduced as “Nicole,” and a brooding brunette she called “Jayne.”  Nicole must have been six feet tall.  She was curvy as hell, the all-natural standard to which those old Baywatch gals tried to aspire.  Her golden hair was accented by sapphire eyes.  Jayne, the brunette, was the shortest of the three, by far, but with the most athletic build.  Her legs, in particular, looked very solid, straining the confines of her jeans.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she had been a gymnast.  Her emerald eyes suggested danger, and something about Jayne made me a little uneasy.  And then there was Angel.  Her black hair was long and straight, and her dark eyes suggested a hint of gentle amusement with this group of horny idiots.  She had on an almost obscenely short dress revealing fishnets that practically screamed “hooker.”  But if she was a professional, she was an expensive one.

Whatever was about to go down, it seems these three vixens were the bait.

“Two friends?” Hotshot scoffed.  “There’s five of us here!  How are we gonna party with five guys and three girls?  I don’t do sloppy seconds.”

Jayne glared with disgust.  Hotshot didn’t seem to notice, as he was staring at Nicole’s chest.

“Trust me, I don’t think you boys could handle one of us,” Jayne spoke.  Her tone was less than friendly.  It fact, it seethed with repulsion.  Angel looked at her harshly, and Jayne turned away, still steaming.

“What’s her problem?” Another one of the boys spoke.  Hotshot’s wingman, apparently.

“Can we just do this quickly?” Nicole spoke for the first time.  Her voice was as soft as her complexion.

Angel reached with one delicate hand and tugged on a chain I hadn’t noticed was hanging around her neck.  An amulet of some sort, concealed by her top, popped into view, dangling from the chain.   It looked much like a jade, only darker.  I could not help but stare at it. 

“What’s this?  Hypnosis?” Hotshot asked.

“Something like that,” Angel said.  She twisted her fingers slightly, and the amulet turned.  Behind the jade side, the stone appeared a dark blood red.  Hotshot started to say something when Angel herself muttered something inaudible.  A blinding red light flashed from the stone.  Blackness enveloped my world and I collapsed to the tile floor.

Stunned, but not unconscious, my field of vision slowly began to restore.  I was somewhere else, it seemed.  At least I thought so.  I could hear Angel’s voice, but it seemed as if it were coming from very far away.  I could see the light from the bar but couldn’t focus yet.  The sound and the light seemed to be coming from above me.  I moved towards the light, and then it hit me.

I wasn’t somewhere else.  I was still in the storage closet… but it was enormous now!  I blinked hard, trying to come to my senses.  But nothing changed.  I was standing on a single tile that was roughly the size of a driveway.  The room did not grow, I deduced.  I must have… was it possible?... shrunk.  I could not have been two inches tall, maybe less, judging by my surroundings.  The mop bucket was the size of a two-story building.  The piece of gum stuck to the floor looked like a small car parked next to me.

They were the bait, I thought.  And the trap.