CHAPTER 3: CLOSING OUT THE TAB

I assume that whatever had happened to me had similarly affected Hotshot and his buddies, though I could neither hear nor see them from my vantage point.   I ventured out of the doorway to peer at the scene.  To no surprise, the three women were their normal size still.  That is to say: staggeringly large.  The blonde, Nicole, was speaking again.

“So that’s it for this county, right?  We can get out of here?” She asked.

“That’s right,” Angel replied.  “May need to move on again.  We don’t want to draw too much attention, do we, love?”

“I still think I was risky to hit the same bar twice,” Nicole said.

“Noted.  But the location is remote.  And our friend has been very helpful,” was Angel’s reply, nodding in the direction of the bartender.

“What do we do with him?” Jayne asked.

“Bring him here,” said Angel.  She squatted down and opened her clutch purse.  “They are amusing at first, aren’t they?  I simply love their expression when they see us for the first time.” 

She made a brushing motion with her hands, and I assumed five tiny humans were just ushered into her purse.  With a light squeeze, that gargantuan hand could end all five of those boys’ lives.  Mine as well.  I swallowed hard in my throat.  Glad I’m not out there, I thought to myself.  Nicole’s once tall and now monumental body walked to the other side of the bar, beyond my field of vision.  Each step made the tiles tremor beneath me.  I waited a moment, and she returned with something cupped in the palm of her hand.  I didn’t have to see.  I knew.  It was the barkeep.  They said they’d leave me alone, he had said earlier.  Now his fate, quite literally, rested in Nicole’s hand.   Angel leaned her face towards Nicole’s hands and spoke gently to the miniature man held within.

“You did well,” said Angel.

 “Very well,” Jayne agreed.  “We’re almost tempted to restore you again.”

So, I thought, the process is reversible.

“Almost,” Angel smirked.

Well that didn’t sound good for the barkeep.  But I had my own problems.  By now, I had realized it was the flash from Angel’s amulet that caused this.  My disbelief had to be suspended, at least for now.  If I could be restored, as Jayne’s last comment suggested, then getting to that amulet was the key.  But how do I get close to it?  And what do I do once I got there?

“That’s twenty total we were able to round up,” Angel said, plucking the barkeep from Nicole’s hands like a figurine.  I could see him momentarily, kicking and writhing.  “Including last month, it’s not a bad pull at all.”  She looked down at the terrified barkeep in her hand.  “We’re leaving now.  However, we cannot restore you this time.  We simply can’t have any loose ends to worry about.”

Oh.  That didn’t sound good at all.

“Angel, please don’t.”  This was the blonde, Nicole, again.  “We let him go.  We said we would.”

“Don’t you remember what happened last time?  You want another massacre on your conscience, love?  They say they won’t tell, but then they do.  And we have to clean it all up.  No.  We don’t let them go anymore,” Angel stated with finality, turning her attention to her captive once again.  “It’s not personal, my pet.  You’ve simply outlived your usefulness to us.”

The barkeep’s end came rather suddenly.  Before he could respond to Angel’s words, she dropped him to the floor.  I could see his tiny frame fall for what seemed to me a hundred stories.  Even as he hit the unforgiving tile floor, Angel’s black stiletto came down on him.  The sound I heard could only be described as horrific.  Angel pressed her foot into the barkeep’s mangled carnage and turned her foot back and forth as if putting out a cigarette.

“Hand me that towel, would you?” Angel asked, pointing at the bar rag.

Jayne leaned in.  “This one’s gross.  I’m not touching it.  I’ll grab a towel from the closet.”

Oh.  Shit.