Read Daemon for Free Online Page A

slimmer build and shorter stature. His lip piercing and arm tats gave him a menacing blue-collar appearance – but if anyone looked closely, the tattoos depicted entwined CAT-5 cable.
    Gragg looked up at the DJ tower, flickering in the strobing laser light. Mix Master Jamal was laying a trance groove. The topless go-go dancers on ten-foot pedestals danced rhythmically. Gragg smirked. The strippers weren’t so much for the teen guys as the teen girls. Suburban girls acted scandalized, but they’d tell friends who’d have to see it for themselves. Where else would girls from good families see nude dancers? In the seedy strip club on the state highway? Hardly.
    Gragg came inside specifically to find one of these girls from a good family. He moved through the crowd to the back of the hangar, where the real money was made – at the ‘pharmacy,’where Cheko’s people sold ecstasy, meth, DMT, keta-mine, and a dozen other recreation-grade pharmaceuticals, in addition to soft drinks and bottled water.
    Gragg could usually spot his quarry easily – the sexy girl with a guy she didn’t look particularly intimate with. A first date, or perhaps just dancing together. He avoided girls with a group of female friends and girls who weren’t having fun.
    He soon found his target; the girl was gorgeous, perhaps seventeen, thin-waisted, but with a good rack shadowing her exposed midsection. Strands of glo-stick circled her belly and neck. It reminded Gragg of Mardi Gras, and that was a good sign. He motioned to a couple of security guards and moved toward her.
    He timed it so he and the guards converged on the dancing couple. Gragg tapped the guy on the shoulder – which sent him twirling around defensively. Gragg held up two neck badges clearly marked All Area Access. Smiling, he looped one around the guy’s neck.
    Few symbols have more power over the Western teenage mind than the All Area Access badge. The guy glanced at the uniformed security guards and evidently felt reassured.
    Gragg, meanwhile, draped the badge over the laughing girl’s neck. Her cleavage glistened with sweat. Gragg leaned over and yelled into the guy’s ear. ‘Your girl is fabulous, man! She should be dancing on the top floor – not down here!’ With that, Gragg slid a couple of pills into the guy’s hand and nodded his head toward the girl. He motioned for them both to follow and led them through the crowd as the burly security guards made a path.
    They soon reached the base of a steel staircase leading up to the DJ tower. It was roped off and flanked by a couple of bouncers. Gragg leaned in close to one of the bouncers. ‘Tell me when she’s taken the hit!’
    The bouncer knew the drill. He watched poker-faced as the young guy popped what he probably thought was ecstasy intothe girl’s mouth. She washed it down with a swig of bottled water, laughed, then writhed with the pounding music. The bouncer nodded to Gragg. Gragg nodded back and the rope was withdrawn to let them pass.
    As the boy passed by Gragg, Gragg leaned into his ear. ‘Play your cards right, man, and I’m gonna get you laid within the hour.’ The guy smiled back and gave Gragg what the kid probably assumed was the universal ‘playas” handshake.
    Gragg watched them go. They were now in the holding pen – a controlled area where he could further reduce her inhibitions. The prostitutes there and Cheko’s men would make it all seem completely acceptable to ‘go wild.’ Gragg had successfully separated her from her support system. The rest should be easy. He was already erect in anticipation, but a little patience was required.
    Gragg walked the perimeter for a good fifteen minutes before heading back to the holding pen. He found the girl dancing on the mid-deck with a crowd of perhaps twenty. Most of the women there were attractive and scantily clad – but these were Cheko’s whores and were of no interest to Gragg. The seventeen-year-old target was laughing as her date danced