Master of Plagues, D. B. Reynolds [best books to read fiction .txt] 📗

Brunswick, New Jersey.”
“You’re kidding!” Stuart laughed, loosening up even more. “What brings you to Las Vegas?”
“Convention relating to my job.”
“Yeah, Las Vegas is a big convention town.”
“And you?”
“Rest and relaxation, take care of some business, I guess.”
“Not to pry or anything, what do you do?”
“Well, I own and operate several pet shops and veterinarian clinics.”
“Cool!” Laura cheered, taking an instant liking to Stuart. “Are you an animal doctor or something?”
“Yes, I have a doctorate in veterinary medicine from NYU.”
“So, I take it that you love animals?”
“Love them to death. Love nature to death.”
Laura wiggled her nose side-to-side. “What type of cologne are you wearing?”
“Yet another designer cologne by Ralph Lauren.”
“His line of colognes are the best.”
Stuart and Laura took a moment to stare into one another’s eyes. The attraction was intense. She found him handsome and he found her beautiful. Both were cultured individuals with exercised etiquette. Had Stuart found the true love of his life? Had Laura found the man of her dreams? Only time could unveil such a complex question.
“I’m curious, Laura. Why is such a beautiful and smart woman like yourself still single?”
“The nice guys are all taken.”
“Guess I can say the same for women. Nice people period are hard to come by, nowadays.”
“Wonder if we’ve both been looking in the wrong places?”
“No one should ever go looking. Because when you go looking, that’s when you’ll never find true love.”
“My parents told me the same thing.”
The attraction between Stuart and Laura escalated.
“How long are you going to be in Las Vegas?”
“Until the weekend.”
“Yourself?”
“Until, whenever.”
How could Stuart ever tell Laura that was thirty-one years of age and was still a virgin?
“Question, Laura.”
“Yeah.”
“How many boyfriends have you had in your life?”
“Just two.”
“Why’d you guys break up?”
“They kept wanting sex. I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t breaking my virginity until I was either married or to a man that I knew just wasn’t out for sex.”
A gleam coated Stuart’s eyes. How astounding it was to meet a beautiful woman who safeguarded her virginity. It appeared they had so much in common. Executive Chef Pierre Laroque approached Stuart’s table with a classic French dish of roasted lemon rosemary chicken with a side order of spinach soufflé. For desert, it was chocolate pistachio ice cream and butter lemon cake. The aroma crept up Stuart’s nostrils and created a turbulence in his stomach. Boy was he ready to eat!
“Would you like anything to eat on the menu?” Stuart offered to Laura, flapping out the thick white napkin.
“Well-----,” Laura hesitated, the menu looking quite delightful.
“My treat.”
“Sure, if you don’t mind,” she accepted. “I’ll have the smoke salmon and dill crepes. And for desert, I’ll have the chocolate mousse pie.”
Chef Laroque took their menus and went back into the kitchen to get the other chefs started on Laura’s meal.
“Nice of you to pay for my meal.”
“Well, a nice meal goes perfect with a nice woman.”
Laura blushed and cut a smile at Stuart. “How nice of you.”
Minutes would pass before Laura received her meal. Stuart retreated to silence while he went to work on the chicken and spinach.
He looked down at his watch and jerked his head back. “My, how time just creeps away from you.”
“Do you have somewhere to be?” Laura asked, halfway through her meal.
“Actually, I have a big appointment early in the morning.”
“My cell phone number, I can give you that,” she volunteered, sending Stuart open signals.
“Great!”
Laura reached into her purse and fished out a pen and small white paper. She wrote down her number and placed it firmly in Stuart’s palm. He rushed out of the restaurant as though a true emergency awaited him.


CHAPTER—28

DEEP IN THE DESERT

A hot baking sun dominated the vast Nevada skies. Temperatures rose to a sweltering 115 degrees Fahrenheit the further Stuart drove towards Southern Nevada. The Mohave Desert was his destination. Stuart cruised at seventy-five miles per hour down Highway U.S. Ninety-Five. The further he approached Southern Nevada, the more stretch of barren desert became visible. He traveled slightly over two-hundred miles outside Las Vegas into a town known as Goldfield.
The town was filled with history from the old gold mining days. The grand old buildings of yesteryear were a sight to behold. In the old, small populated Nevada town, there was a gas station, grocery and convenience stores, an antique store, a saddle shop, and bars. From 1903 to 1940, Goldfield’s mines produced more than 86 million dollars in pure gold. Would’ve been nice if the Duffelmeyer family could’ve cashed in on some of the good fortune.
Esmeralda County lay claim to nothing but partial abandonment and desert surroundings. One landmark in particular which caught the attention of Stuart was The Goldfield Hotel. He parked the car and took a moment to study the architecture of the building. Having been used to the architectural designs of buildings in New York City and other cities, the stone and brick structure seemed to have withstood the harsh elements of the desert.
A creepy, yet adventurous feeling came over him. He stepped up to the front door and knocked. As far he knew, the hotel was still operational, even during the Twenty-First Century, given how it was built in 1908.
“Hello,” Stuart chimed, the door sliding open on its own.
No one answered him. He walked further into the lobby section.
“Hello, is anybody here?” he asked again, dust from the desert winds blowing around his face.
Stuart looked around and noticed how the lobby had been paneled with mahogany and furnished in black leather upholstery. Hanging just beneath the gold-leaf ceilings were glistening crystal chandeliers trimmed in pure gold. Voices, some high and others low, came from out of nowhere. A piano played a tune from the old Western days. Appearing on a stage which popped up out of nowhere, were a chorus of women in long red and blue dresses.
Gunslinging cowboys appeared at round wooden tables wearing boots with solid gold spurs. The guns resting inside their holsters were crafted from gold. A group of the cowboys reached into a cigar box made out of shiny gold. The dancers on stage wore necklaces and rings also made out of pure gold. The precious metal known as gold was everywhere. What Stuart witnessed were a bunch of men and women from the spiritual world who hadn’t quite left the Earth. While still in the flesh, they were a part of society’s upper crust.
The ghostly figure of a businessman cowboy, a man with a bushy black mustache who towered over Stuart, smiled down on him and said, “Son, this town was all about gold. If you had the gold, you had the goods and the girls.”
The cowboy and the others disappeared right before Stuart’s eyes. Constantly, he’d been reminded that having supernatural powers from the Universe, he saw spirits from the otherworld and from yesteryear. He climbed back inside the rent-a-car and continued his journey further into the Mohave desert. The brutal summer sun still dominated the Nevada skies. Stuart stopped and parked the car in the middle of nowhere. He stepped out and no longer felt the cool relief from the car’s air conditioner.
The temperature extremes of the Mohave Desert showed no mercy. The stinging of the sun’s rays were casted down on his skin. Large beads of sweat popped out of his pores. His face got drenched in less than a minute. For such an affront, he brought out a big cooler from the backseat. The cooler was filled with frosty plastic bottles of water. High humidity, high temperatures, and little winds, they were the harsh elements he faced.
Stuart pulled the magical talisman from under the thin white cotton shirt. Concentrating under the sweltering hot sun, he ran the tips of his fingers along the highly-consecrated Hebrew letters. The cat claw trees and snake weeds and golden bushes all shook. The scorching sun was masked by a thick cluster of black clouds.
The once fiery temperatures cooled down to more comfortable degrees. High winds from out of the Pacific Northwest blew into the Mohave Desert. The skies parted and cosmic powers from the Universe were released. Pressure from beneath the desert’s surface sent earthquake-like tremors throughout the land. Forces energized by the Universe lifted Stuart off the ground. Dust and powerful desert winds surrounded him. Underneath a Creosote Bush were a big nest of western diamondback rattlesnakes. Crawling into the burrows of mice for a quick meal were more rattlesnakes. A crater about half-deep as the gorges in the Grand Canyon was formed right there in the Mohave Desert. Every western diamondback rattlesnake within a fifty mile proximity were sucked deep within the confines of this crater. A shield of cosmic energy covered the opening.
Stuart looked into the deep dark menacing eyes of the biggest rattlesnake inside the crater. The snake opened its mouth and displayed a pair of atrocious fangs. The scales on its skin changed from light brown to dark gray. The snake’s heat sensing pits picked up the human scent wavering off the body of Stuart. Its distinguishing rattler shook with jurisdiction. Stuart and the western diamondback rattlesnake studied one another closely.
The snake used its vertically elliptical pupils to stare fiercely into the eyes of Stuart. In return, Stuart felt no intimidation while trying to glance around the circumference of the pitch black pupils. Both of the snake’s eyes looked like flaming black marbles. Its eyes worked in conjunction with its pits to determine the position and range and distance of Stuart’s body. The large snake whipped out its tongue and shook its rattler. The lines of