by C. C. Mahon
“Pisces.”
“Huh?”
“My astrological sign: Pisces, Virgo rising. What about you?”
I let out a groan of frustration before saying through clenched teeth, “I’m not going to get a single answer out of you, am I?”
He shrugged casually. “You have to forgive an old man’s whims. And I gave you a lead. The rest is up to you. Don’t let me down.”
He took his coffee, stood up, and left the café. No one turned as he passed, no one looked at him, and I wondered if he was invisible or just ultra-commonplace to the eyes of the other customers.
It took me a few deep breaths and several gulps of burning hot coffee to chase Dale from my mind. I would have time to think about the irritating detective later. For now, I had a pack of wolves to interrogate.
The metamorphs had finished engulfing their gargantuan breakfast. They sipped at the rest of their coffees, looking satisfied. I decided that full bellies would relax them and that I had to jump on this opportunity. I grabbed my cup of coffee and quietly headed towards their table.
“May I?” I asked, approaching a chair.
I sat cross-legged, facing the group.
The metamorphs sat up in their seats and looked at me, stunned, suspicious, and even hostile.
“We’re not buying,” said one of them—a handsome fella with blue-gray eyes in a weather-beaten face. A bandage was peeking out from his turtleneck and extended to the beginnings of his three-day beard.
“Great,” I said, “I’m not selling anything. Just one question. The boy that was found covered in bite marks, was that you?”
The guy who had greeted me shook his head. “Bite marks? What boy? We don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Beside him, a girl—brunette and just as tanned—sniffed ostensibly, as if she recognized a scent. I saw her eyes stop at the top of my sword case barely jutting over my left shoulder. Her eyebrows, straight and thin, frowned.
I took out my phone. “And them, do you know them?”
I shoved my phone screen under their noses, where I was displaying Patricia and Kitty’s pictures. Their expressions closed off. I saw one guy go white, and a girl looked away.
“Are they dead too?” I asked. “Did you kill them?”
“No!” started another guy. “It’s not—”
The first metamorph who spoke to me interrupted the other with a murderous glare. “We have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “We’ve never seen those people.”
He stood up, and all the others did the same. They headed towards the exit of the café, and this time the other customers stepped aside as if they were scared of being knocked over. The last person to leave the table was the young woman. With her brown ponytail and her freckles, she seemed very young. But her eyes were hard. She leaned towards me as she walked by. “Mind your own business if you value your life.” She walked faster to catch up to the others and disappeared with them in the direction of the street.
I went back to the table I had shared with Dale to think about what I had just learned. The wolves knew Patricia and Kitty; that much was obvious. Some seemed to feel guilty. One of them had stated that they hadn’t killed them. Did that mean that the disappeared were still alive, or maybe that someone else had killed them? It could also just be a flat out lie, but I kind of doubted that. That “no!” was a cry from the heart. And that whispered threat by the last metamorph to leave the table, what was I supposed to make of that? Also, was it a threat or a warning?
But that left the question of Adam’s murder. The guy seemed legitimately surprised when I’d spoken of bite marks. Could Adam’s death and the disappearances of Patricia and Kitty not be linked? In that case, who had killed Adam? But this question wasn’t the most pressing. I had to find my two missing persons before they met a similar fate. The dead could wait.
I estimated that I’d given them enough of a head start and stood up myself. A group of tourists entered the coffee shop, speaking very loudly in what sounded like Chinese. I observed a woman in her fifties, who was wearing pleated Bermuda shorts and a tinted visor. I whispered the enchantment, and the glamor took effect the moment I left the café. In the eyes of the world, the woman crossing the entryway wasn’t Erica St. Gilles, but an Asian tourist with a questionable fashion sense.
15
THE METAMORPHS HADN’t gone far. I found them in the hotel parking lot. They seemed agitated, which gave me a small sense of pride. I had managed to scare them.
The guy who had led most of the conversation extended his arm towards the back of the parking lot, and the other metamorphs headed in that direction. I guessed that guy was the leader of the pack. Only one of the women stayed with him. I recognized the metamorph who had sniffed out my sword. They launched into an animated discussion. The woman seemed to try to convince her companion, who was refusing by shaking his head. Once again, I wished I had the heightened senses of the metamorphs. I didn’t dare get any closer to the duo, scared that the woman would smell the odor of my sword again. To give me the appearance of something to do, I pulled out my phone. Lola had answered my messages.
“You’re starting to understand how it works. I’ll look into the records ASAP. As for the cameras, I can’t make any promises. I’ve still got Dale on my back.”
“We have to talk about Dale,” I replied. “Come by the club tonight.”
Then, after some hesitation, I composed a second message: “I found a group of metamorphs who knows something. They’re staying at the Sphinx. I’m going to follow them.”
Her reply came almost immediately. “Status report every 15 mins, more often if necessary. Keep your distance. Call me before doing anything.”
I smiled and answered, “I promise, Mom.”
I raised my eyes to discover that my two prey were getting away in a big white 4X4. And I had left my bike near the airport.
“Nice tailing, Erica. Good job,” I mumbled as I looked around frantically.
A taxi driver was unloading a mountain of suitcases from the trunk of his car as a small family of tourists were chatting around him. I dropped my disguise and headed quickly over to the driver. I grabbed a suitcase from the trunk and put it down on the sidewalk. “It’s an emergency,” I said. “I’ll pay double and a case of premium vodka.”
The driver looked me over for a moment. He was a big guy, young, with matte brown skin that owed more to genetics than the sun. “I don’t drink,” he declared solemnly.
“I…uh…”
He burst out laughing and unloaded the last suitcase. “I’m kidding,” he said with a wide smile. “Get in.” He sped away in the direction I told him to before adding, “That said, I prefer whisky.”
“Bourbon or scotch?”
“Bourbon, I’m patriotic! Who are we following?”
“Do you see the white 4X4 turning left?”
“Let me guess: a cheating husband? A Russian spy? A casino robber?”
“There’s two of them, and I think they kidnapped several people.”
“Kidnapped? Gosh. Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“I just informed them. I need to keep an eye on the suspects until the cavalry arrives. Can I count on you?”
“A tail then? That’s more exciting than the trips to the airport. And there’s no suitcases to carry. Of course I’m in.”
I tried to situate myself in the perpendicular streets and identical neighborhoods. “Where are we right now?”
My driver pointed towards the main stretch and the big sign that read “Welcome to Las Vegas.” “We’re leaving Paradise and heading to Vegas,” he said.
“We’re driving north then?”
I sent Lola a text to let her know my position and the description of the metamorphs’ vehicle.
“Can you make out the license plate?” I asked.
My driver leaned over his steering wheel. “No. Do you want me to get close?”
“Let’s keep our distance,” I said. “Don’t worr
y about the license plate. I don’t want them to see us.”
After a few minutes of silence, my driver asked, “This kidnapping business, are you being serious?”
“Very.”
“Friends of yours? The victims, I mean.”
“Friends of friends, actually.”
“Are you a PI?”
“No. A friend asked me for help. She overestimates my abilities, but no one wants to do anything and…”
“You’re a woman of action.”
“I’m too nice.”
The car took a turn at full speed, and I let out a small surprised yelp.
“Sorry, Miss. Your suspects are driving like maniacs all of a sudden.”
“Do you think they spotted us?”
“Um…I don’t usually tail people. Maybe I made a mistake. Wait.” He started speaking in a language that I didn’t understand, and I realized he was on the phone. After a few moments of animated conversation, he told me, “I called my uncle, who’s a limo driver. He’s contacting my cousins. In my family, all the men earn a living behind the wheel. They’ll take over when they spot the vehicle. The only problem is that white 4X4s are everywhere arou…Ah!”
He continued his phone call, and I waited. The streets rolled by on the other side of the window, and I spotted our prey far ahead of us. If my super driver’s family didn’t hurry up, we were going to lose the metamorphs.
“It’s fine, Miss. Two cousins have spotted the vehicle. We’ll stay back.”
He slowed down, and the wolves’ 4X4 disappeared in the traffic.
“And the women, I asked, what do they do?”
“What?”
“You said that all the men in your family earn a living behind the wheel. What about the women?”
“The women do whatever they want,” he said in a burst of laughter. “One of my cousins is in her last year of medical school. We’re very proud of her. Another is studying groundhogs somewhere in the Rockies. My aunt and uncle don’t understand the appeal of spending weeks in a tent waiting for the small creatures, but she seems happy. And her little sister already has enough babies to satisfy her parents, so everyone is as pleased as punch.” After another phone call, my driver did a U-turn. “They’re heading back towards the Strip,” he said.
“What language are you speaking with your cousins?”
“Farsi. It’s an Iranian language.”
“Were you born there?”
“No, here. But my parents always speak Farsi at home. I learned English at school, and now I speak both. And Spanish. And a little Mandarin for the tourists.”
“You’re a resourceful man.”
Silence fell over us again. The excitement of tailing the truck gave way to a strange nostalgia. It took me a few minutes and a few conversations in Farsi to understand the cause of it: this whole family of uncles and cousins drivers and a cousin expert in groundhogs cruelly reminded me of the absence of my own family. My parents and my little sister, who I had abandoned thinking I was protecting them from Callum and who the Valkyrie that I had nicknamed Goldilocks had murdered when she was looking for me.
“There!” shouted my driver.
He pointed towards the other side of the street. I hadn’t been paying attention, but we were already on the Strip, and the white truck was turning into a parking garage.
“That’s a private parking,” said my driver in an apologetic tone. “I can’t go in.”
“That’s fine, I’ll get out here.”
I read the number on his meter, multiplied it by two in my head, and dug in my wallet. I handed him all my bills.
“There’s money missing,” I said, “plus the case of bourbon.” I took out a business card for the club and handed it to him. “Go here one night. The bouncer’s name is Nate. Tell him Erica sent you.”
He took my card and handed me one in return. “Next time you want to follow a criminal, call me! My name is Kurosh.”
I left the taxi and crossed the street.
The parking garage in which the metamorphs had entered belonged to a luxury building. On the first floor, a leather store sold ridiculously overpriced handbags to tourists. The rest of the building seemed taken up by lawyers’ offices.
I covered my ground quickly, found a souvenir shop a little further up, and pretended to be interested in the plastic knick-knacks, long enough to take stock of things.
Were Kitty and Patricia being held captive in this building? I had no way of knowing. I needed a location spell. I didn’t know if my finances would allow it.
Maybe Kitty’s family could pay for the spell. When you call your son “third of his name,” you must have some money set aside. But if I told them that their son had been kidnapped, by wolves no less, they weren’t going to settle for paying a wizard. They would show up in Vegas, probably in full force. If I involved another pack in this, a foreign pack, wouldn’t I be starting an all-out war among the metamorphs?
I felt stupid and helpless. I needed a gallon of coffee. More seriously, I had to get to bed. The morning was already getting away from me, and nightclub owners kept the same schedules as vampires.
I was still in the souvenir shop, debating between the call of my bed and the hope of seeing someone coming out of the building, when my phone rang. It was Lola.
“I’ve been sending you messages for forty-five minutes!” the detective yelled as soon as I picked up. “What the hell are you doing? Where are you? If you got yourself shot, I’m warning you…”
“It’s good, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’m okay.”
I quickly explained to her where I was and gave her the building’s address where the wolves had disappeared.
“You think your two victims are in that building?” asked Lola.
“I don’t know. And I’m assuming even the police can’t go knocking on all the doors of the building to check.”
“Correct. And it’s ridiculous how hesitant kidnappers are to let victims open the door for strangers.”
“Besides your biting sarcasm, do you have anything to tell me?” I asked.
“I contacted a friend in vice. You can’t imagine the number of prostitutes that go missing every year in this city. Most just decide to go see if the grass is greener on the sidewalks of another city. Some rent a room in brothels, beyond state lines. Others stop working. Either they’ve come to Jesus, their pimp put them in the hospital, or they’ve become pregnant.”
“Great. You’re restoring my faith in humanity.”
“Same. In the end, there’s only three or four murdered prostitutes, and they’ve all been solved: for three of them the pimp was at fault, and for the last it was a john who, and I quote, ‘got swept away in the heat of the moment.’”
“Urgh,” I let out.
“Same here. So, to get in a better mood, I looked at a file of the last six months to see how many other bodies had been found covered in bite marks.”
“And?”
“Just one. This morning. Near the airport.”
“You’re kidding? You couldn’t have told me this sooner? Who? Where?”
“No, no, I don’t know, behind police tape.”
“Lola!” I snapped.
“No, I’m not kidding. No, I couldn’t have told you this sooner. If I had to spend thirty minutes listening to all the details of the sexual depravity of our beautiful city this morning, there’s no reason you should be spared. I don’t know who it is yet. A young man, African-American, five foot seven, slim build. Does that mean anything to you?”
“No,” I said with a sigh of relief. “That’s not one of my missing persons.”
“As for the location,” said Lola, “it’s an alleyway behind one of the hotels near the airport. But you are not to go near it for the moment. It’s crawling with cops. Understood?”
I let out a sigh of mixed fatigue and discouragement. “Lola, what do I do now?”
“It’s almost noon. Go to bed. I’ll comb through traffic accident reports, and I’ll keep you up t
o date. As for your question about the bite marks, I don’t know what to tell you. The local coroner likely doesn’t see wolf bites very often, not to mention the other creatures you might be thinking of. I’ll come by the club tonight to go over the situation.”
“We can’t do anything else? They’re still in danger in the meantime.”
“Call your ginger-smelling Brit? He might have an idea.”
“I’m not sure I can afford to pay for his services.”
“Didn’t he work for free to find Barbie?”
“He worked for the Guild at the time. Now he’s self-employed. There’s a good chance he’s a little more stingy with his money. But I’ll try. Thanks.”
“And get some rest. You sound like a zombie.”
Lola hung up. I called Britannicus, my “ginger-smelling Brit.” I got his voicemail and left a confusing and babbling message. Lola was right; I’d be best to go to bed.
But first, I had to go retrieve my bike, left near the airport. And since I’d be in the neighborhood, I could have a quick look at the crime scene Lola had just told me about, right?
16
THE TAXI DRIVER who dropped me off near my bike was much less friendly than my super Iranian driver, but he informed me that the alley behind one of the hotels had been blocked to traffic since the early hours.
No one had touched my bike. I straddled it and immediately left in the direction of said hotel. I circled once, took note that the two police cars and the yellow tape didn’t let me approach the parking lot, and decided to try my luck in the lobby.
The hotel was of extravagant baroque style, with white volutes and rose bushes everywhere. Fountains were gurgling in the hall, and I came across at least three just-married couples in the middle of photoshoots before reaching the reception desk.
“Excuse me,” I said to the hostess. “I’m trying to get to my vehicle in the back parking lot, but the police is blocking it off. Is there a problem?”
The woman’s warm smile twisted into a more or less shrewd grimace. “Just an incident. We’re waiting for the city technicians before being able to reopen access to that area. It’s just a precaution. If you need to get around, we can graciously lend you a car for the day or call you a cab.”
