Static Reflections: Book 1 of The Mortal Guard Series

Chapter 13 - Boris: Connections

Chapter 13 - Boris - "Connections"

Tyler and Boris stepped up to enter the Lowball's doors, a horse bouncer sent away the animals in front of them for being drunk before stepping into the establishment. The animal, a brown stallion, held his hand up. "Hold up. How old is the otter?"

Boris patted himself. "I'm twenty, sir."

"Hm . . . you do sound mature for your looks . . . ."

"It's the rich trash tone," Tyler answered, and the horse chuckled.

"T-trash?!" Boris frowned.

"I'm just messing around," Tyler said.

The horse held out his hand. "Regardless, I still have to check your IDs."

The two animals grabbed their wallets (Boris would call it a billfold) and showed each of their IDs to the bouncer, who studied them closely. Boris' license was that of a typical Texas 'Under 21' license, still in a vertical format and stating that he would be a minor until Christmas of that year. He wasn't smiling in his photo. Because Tyler was over 21, his license was in a portrait format, and it had all the makings of a regular license. In his picture, though, Tyler was smiling.

Boris didn't say it but found it strange that an animal like Hugh would let the German shepherd even have a license. As far as he knew, he had never seen Tyler drive. He or Nick was always the driver. And there was no way that Hugh let Tyler borrow his car.

The horse nodded. "The ott can't have alcohol, even if he is the son of Gerald Downing."

At the sound of his father's name, Boris looked down. He just disappeared from Downing Manor without saying goodbye to his father or Molly or especially Leah. Indeed, they'd notice his absence. He chalked it up to the fact that Absalom was probably taking care of it.

"Alright, thanks," Tyler grinned. "Come on, Bor. Let's party."

"Right," Boris nodded, and they walked forward. Tyler opened the door, and, as it always had when someone did that, the music burst out of the building so loud that Boris felt like his eardrums would explode.

They entered and went down the next hallway, which had been bathed in an ominous red light. Taped along the wall were posters that advertised events in Austin and things going down at the Lowball at later dates. The music crescendoed with each step, and finally, Boris and Tyler entered the sizable open club area with a relatively low roof and an ocean of animals.

The first thing Boris noticed was all the outfits, or a lot of the time, lack thereof. Like Tyler, there were a lot of shirtless men wearing shorts and dancing. Quite a few of them had masks of strange designs; others just clearly wore as little as they could. Some women wore dresses or bathing suits, it seemed, and they also had masks. Boris wondered why they would want to hide their faces, but he didn't know what party culture was.

Then, there were the more intense outfits. Boris noticed outfits made up of straps and hoods that he was pretty sure he had only seen on 18+ websites. A few of the animals were being led around on leashes, wearing collars and seeming very happy to do so. Some even wore muzzles purposefully. Almost everyone had removed their shoes.

Animals of all types wore wigs that gave them strange hairstyles. Boris would forever wonder what the point of that was. It was also undeniable that a lot of animals were fur dyers. Some had even colored their fur in a way that it glowed beneath the long blacklights above, making them look unnatural.

Speaking of glowing, almost every animal sported glow sticks that they wore on their wrists, digits, ankles, hung on their ears, antlers, and even on the base of some tails. Every color of glowstick possible was out there. Thanks to the bouncing music and constantly moving bodies of the bar's patrons, they were drawing lines of light every which way. It was a rainbow catastrophe out there.