The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  “Uh, Caitlin? Isn’t this one of Gordon Ramsay’s places? Don’t you need reservations at least a week ahead of time to get in?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at me.

  “I don’t, no.”

  21.

  True to her word, Caitlin only had to whisper a few words to the maître d’ and we were whisked away to a two-seater table with a view of the kitchen. The prices on the menu were the scariest thing I’d seen all day, but my pockets were stuffed with cash from Artie’s poker game and the company was nothing to complain about. Caitlin picked out a ginger liqueur with lemon and bitters from the drink menu, and I ordered a Vesper martini.

  “Here’s what I don’t get,” I said. “How did you get snared by the Kaufman brothers in the first place? I’ve seen remnants of infernal contracts before. They’re always give-and-take, ‘you do this and I’ll do this.’ Not the one you signed, though, it gave all the power to Artie and left you…”

  I was going to say “virtually a slave,” but I fell silent, seeing the storm clouds brewing behind her eyes. Her lips pursed in a tight scarlet line.

  “I was sent a message, which I believed authentic, that my prince wished me to meet with one of his agents in a hotel room. It was an ambush. There were several people waiting for me, under hoods and masks, and they…forced me to sign it.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t get it. What’d they do, hold a gun to your head? I doubt that would slow you down much.”

  “They have something that they shouldn’t,” she said, seeming to choose her words with great care, “a bit of old magic that has no place in this world, something venomous to my kind. Its very existence is a sensitive topic.”

  “How sensitive?”

  Caitlin sipped her drink, giving me a hard look. “Sensitive enough that if you so much as knew its name, I would be obligated to tear your throat out. Find another question to ask.”

  “So you were captured. Sheldon and his friends gave you to his brother, who kept you in that house. What did Detective Holt have to do with it?”

  “He was the entire reason I was there. I had one purpose: to seduce him, addict him, and keep him pliable. He was vital to their plan. Understand that the Kaufmans had no idea who I was, beyond my basic nature. I heard them talking on the phone once, and Sheldon told Artie, ‘If she can’t do a job on Holt, get rid of her and I’ll tell our benefactor to find us another succubus.’”

  I frowned. “So it wasn’t personal for them. They asked this ‘benefactor’ to find them some random succubus, and he or she led them to you.”

  It didn’t hang together, though I wasn’t sure how. Some detail nagged at me. The waitress came back.

  “We’ll have the beef wellies for two,” Caitlin told her.

  “The cambion,” I said as soon as the waitress walked off, “that’s the problem. Wait—you just ordered for me.”

  Caitlin nodded. “I did. You’ll love it. Best thing on the menu. What about the cambion? They didn’t know anything; they were just acting out.”

  “That’s the problem. They didn’t know anything. Just that you were gone, right? You up and vanished one day, and the toe-eater and his buddies figured it was party time.”

  She narrowed her eyes as she put her cocktail glass to her lips. “Right, and?”

  “So how did they know I was the one who set you free? Somebody had to have told them. We sure as hell didn’t leave any witnesses behind.”

  “I haven’t spoken to anyone about it. You? Who did you tell?”

  I had to think about it. Gossip was like breathing for Bentley and Corman, but they wouldn’t have said a word. I frowned, suddenly realizing who could have pointed the ferals my way.

  “Nicky Agnelli, that piece of shit.”

  Caitlin glared. “What about Nicky Agnelli?”

  “You know him?”

  “Of course I know him. He’s been a thorn in my side for years. He’s always wanted my job. Not to serve, mind you, but to use the office to further his greedy little ambitions.”

  I gave her a quick recap of my week, from finding Stacy’s wraith in the storm drains to my unexpected interview with Nicky at Club Prive.

  “I knew Nicky was either keeping tabs on me or on Stacy’s grandfather with his pet seer, so I used an artifact to shield myself when I went to Kaufman’s house. I took it off, though, on the night of the poker game. If his guys were watching, Nicky knows exactly what went down there. This was payback. He must have leaked the details to the toe-eater and figured the ferals would do his dirty work for him.”

  “Khlegota,” Caitlin spat, the flensetongue word slipping into my eardrums and doing cartwheels of spite. “I imagine the Kaufmans paid him to track down a succubus they could capture for their little plan. By sending them at me, he earned his filthy money and got me out of the picture.”

  I nodded. “That’s Nicky’s flavor, no doubt about it. As long as I’ve known him, he’s always been a five-moves-ahead kind of guy. So what now? Are you going to go after him?”

  The waitress brought over our plates, and Caitlin fell silent, looking pensive. The rich aroma of the beef Wellington opened my eyes wider than a pot of espresso.

  “I can’t,” Caitlin said. “Nicky wasn’t abandoned or cast out like most halfbloods. His father is a duke in Prince Sitri’s court, and he’s very protective of his family’s reputation. I don’t dare move against him without ironclad evidence.”

  I sighed. “Which Nicky knows. He’s also the kind of guy, in my experience, who has a knack for keeping his hands clean.”

  “Choir of Pride,” she muttered, slicing into her meat, “they’re insufferable, every last one of them.”

  The first bite melted on my tongue, a perfect blend of tender beef and puff pastry, the juices laden with flavor. “This is fantastic,” I said. “I forgive you for ordering for me.”

  “See? Trust me. What’s your next move?”

  I scooped up a forkful of glazed vegetables and contemplated it.

  “Well, now that Nicky wants to kill me, that has to be squared. It’ll keep, though. His gambit with the ferals failed, and he’s gotta be thinking I suspect him. He won’t try again anytime soon.”

  “What makes you think he won’t just shoot you?”

  I shook my head. “Because Nicky Agnelli has a very strained relationship with the Vegas occult underground. We leave his rackets alone, and he leaves us alone. If he did anything to change that though, like for instance going all Al Capone and capping one of us, or anything else that could be traced back to his doorstep…well, he’s tough, but he’s not tough enough to handle every sorcerer in the city coming down on his head at the same time.”

  “Sounds like we both have scores to settle.”

  “Not just with him. I’m going after Sheldon Kaufman. The only way to free Stacy is by getting my hands on that soul-trap and trying to put her back together somehow. I can’t go all guns blazing, so I aim to shadow him a little and see what I can find out about this ‘plan’ of his. How about you?”

  “Recovering the…old magic I spoke of is my first priority. Second is seeing that Sheldon joins his brother in hell. I have plans of my own, after what they did to me.”

  But you can’t take the direct approach either, I thought as I savored another bite of beef Wellington. Not as long as Sheldon’s packing the kind of power to force you into signing another one-sided contract. You’d end up right back where you started, or worse.

  “Sounds like we’re walking the same road,” I said.

  “I’m not opposed to walking together a bit longer,” she said with a smile that suddenly faded. “But Daniel, heed me on this. Should you find what I seek, do not try to claim it for yourself. You will be tempted. But you would regret surrendering to that temptation, just as I would regret what I would have to do to you.”

  “Would you like my word of honor?”

  “You’re a sorcerer. Your ‘word of honor’ is just as worthless as mine. I will settle for your affir
mation instead.”

  “Then I affirm,” I said, “whatever you’re hunting is yours. All I want is Stacy’s soul, so I can put things right.”

  Caitlin smiled, teasing. “How noble of you. A knight in tarnished armor.”

  “Nothing noble about it. I took her grandfather’s money and said I’d do a job for him. The job’s not done yet. Simple as that.”

  She held up her last forkful of beef, studying its succulent texture in the light.

  “You interest me,” she mused. “Dessert?”

  She insisted on ordering again, but after that meal, I couldn’t complain. The waitress brought over plates with a gooey, glistening toffee cake and, to my bewilderment, a stick of butter.

  “I know gourmet food can be high-calorie,” I said, “but that’s overkill.”

  “Try it.” Caitlin wagged her fork at me. “Have I steered you wrong yet?”

  The texture felt all wrong, softer than butter. As I put a forkful to my lips and tasted the cold rush of brown sugar and cream I let out a little murmur of pleasure.

  “Brown sugar and butter-flavored ice cream,” I said. “Perfect.”

  “Quite. Believe me, I know temptation.”

  That was what worried me, but I was having too much fun to let my better judgment get in the way.

  “So how long have you lived here?” I asked.

  “I was appointed as the prince’s hound in the mid-eighties. Wonderful time. Still have my leg warmers somewhere. I’d been to Earth a few times before, but…much earlier.”

  “It was an interesting decade. Good music, too.”

  “The best music,” Caitlin said. “Duran Duran, Howard Jones—”

  “Howard Jones was great. How about Tears for Fears?”

  “Saw them in concert!”

  I laughed. “I bet you’re fun at concerts. So is it all work and no play for you these days, or do you actually get to relax once in a while?”

  “What do you call this?” she said with a grin. “I’m always on duty, but I find little ways to amuse myself. What about you? How do you make ends meet?”

  “A little of this, a little of that. Some jobs I’m more proud of than others. If I’m ever really low on cash, I can go down to Fremont and do my busker routine for a few hours. I do a little magic. Not magic-magic, I mean. Sleight of hand.”

  Caitlin leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, a lopsided smile on her lips. “Show me.”

  “Seriously? It’s not very impressive compared to the real thing.”

  “Show me anyway.”

  “If the lady insists,” I said, dipping into my pocket and holding up my car keys. I gave them a jingle. “I need to borrow your napkin.”

  “I’m going to want that back,” she said, handing it over to me. Our fingers brushed with an electric tingle. I folded the keys up in the middle of the linen napkin, tying them into a bundle as I explained.

  “Like most people, I have trouble with losing my car keys from time to time. They just go missing, like they’ve got a mind of their own. One day I thought I’d fix that by tying them down, like so.” I trapped the keys at the bottom of an elaborate knot and held it up, shaking it so Caitlin could hear them jingle inside their napkin prison. I offered it to her. “Here, hold it just under the knot.”

  “All right,” she said, the bundle dangling from her fingertips, “what now?”

  “Well, now I go back to the drawing board, because it didn’t work at all. Go ahead, take a look.”

  She looked dubious, untying the bundle, then laughed as she shook out an empty napkin. The waitress brought me the check in a slim folio.

  “All right, so where did the keys go?” she said.

  “Your guess is as good as—” I started to say, then opened the folio. The keys tumbled out, clattering on the table. “Oh. I guess they wanted to go home with the waitress.”

  “Naughty keys.”

  “I know, terrible date etiquette.” I paused. “Er, that is, are we…are we on a date?”

  22.

  Caitlin smiled brightly, but the expression faded just as fast, like a bouquet of flowers left out in the desert sun.

  “It doesn’t,” she started, hesitant, “it just doesn’t work. We can’t, I mean…it’s just dinner.”

  I bit my lip, feeling like an ass. “Of course, right. So, uh, I’m going to follow up on Sheldon Kaufman. I want to know what his scheme’s all about. With his brother and Carl Holt dead, I figure it’s pretty much all over, but desperate people make stupid moves.”

  “We can only hope,” Caitlin said. “Don’t underestimate him, Daniel. He’s not like his brother.”

  I thought about the high-end wards in his office, and the gun in his desk, as I padded the check folio with cash and set it on the table. “He hasn’t met me yet.”

  “I’m serious. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to have a decent conversation with someone who wasn’t, well…someone who wasn’t either afraid of me or scheming against me, or both. Don’t go getting yourself killed before we have a chance at another.”

  “Count on it. Hey, I was wondering something when you crashed the party back at the factory. Where’d you get the name Wingtaker?”

  Caitlin dabbed her scarlet lips with her napkin.

  “It’s a very long story,” she said, “and you wouldn’t like how it ends. Suffice to say it’s how I earned my position.”

  She was half right, earlier. I wasn’t scheming, but was I afraid of her? Standing next to Caitlin was like walking into a lioness’ den wearing a suit made of T-bone steaks. No amount of infatuation could make me forget what she was, or drown out the memory of Artie Kaufman’s dying screams.

  So why did I linger on the steps outside the restaurant, flirting around the edges of a goodnight kiss like a teenager? In the end, she just rested her hand on my shoulder and favored me with a smile. I took a taxi home.

  I dug out an old Howard Jones CD and played it on my laptop. I lay back on my bed, hands clasped behind my head, letting the music carry me back in time. A fresh bottle of Jack waited on the end table, but for the first time in weeks I didn’t feel the need to pour a nightcap. The music was better.

  #

  I set the alarm to wake me up a little before dawn. Lots to do, if I wanted to get the drop on Sheldon Kaufman today. I grabbed a breakfast burrito and a paper cup of black coffee from the gas station on the corner, then hit the thrift store as soon as it opened. Fortunately, they had exactly what I was looking for: a white polo shirt, pristine white slacks, and matching Nikes with a pale silver swish. I looked exactly like somebody who should be serving drinks and taking car keys at a fancy country club. Either that or selling you a vacuum cleaner.

  Blending in was easy. Getting in was something else entirely. Red Rock Country Club was a gated community in Summerlin, basking in the shadows of the Spring Mountains. Howard Hughes founded Summerlin and it still bore his thumbprint. The locals could afford the best of everything, and that included the kind of guards who had real training and real firepower.

  A cab dropped me off in the Carmichael-Sterling parking lot so I could pick up my car. Thankfully, none of the cambion had come back after the kidnapping to slash my tires. I drove into Summerlin with the morning sun at my back. On the passenger seat, a small beige tote bag concealed the extra goodies I’d brought from home. When I reached Red Rock’s east gate, where a guardhouse kept watch over the manicured road, I took a left and circled the community with one eye on the outer wall.

  The problem with security, real and bulletproof security, is that it’s ugly. By way of example, take a look at a supermax prison or better yet, a liquor store in the bad part of town. The rich and beautiful want to feel safe in their homes, but they don’t want to look out through barred windows or ruin their view of the canyon with strings of razor wire. There’s always a compromise between safety and aesthetics, and that compromise is where guys like me wriggle in.

  “Perfect,” I murmured as I came back around, now
watching the houses on the outlying streets. Mail jutted out from an overstuffed mailbox on one corner, the lawn behind it at least two weeks overgrown and browning in the heat. The neighboring driveways sat empty, their owners probably off at work, nobody keeping a helpful eye on the place. I pulled into the driveway and parked. My car should go unnoticed and unchallenged there until I got back, and it was close enough that I’d have a chance of reaching it should things go wrong. Not a good chance, but better than nothing.

  The seven-foot brick wall ringing Red Rock was pretty, but some concertina wire would have made it a lot harder to climb. I took a running jump, grabbing the edge of the hot, rough stone and hauling myself up and over while the toes of my sneakers scrabbled for purchase between the bricks. Landing hard on a manicured lawn, a lance of pain jolting up my shins, I quickly looked around for cameras or bystanders before jogging to the sidewalk and putting on my best impersonation of an innocent taxpayer.

  I took it slow on my way to the country club. Heat mirages glistened in the distance over spotless streets. My entire goal was not to be noticed, and being out of breath and soaked with sweat tends to draw attention in polite company. The scenery stole my breath faster than the heat. My gaze lingered over cars I’d only seen on Top Gear, polished to glow in the desert sun and parked in front of three-million-dollar houses.

  I couldn’t imagine having that kind of money. I’d always just gotten by, living hand to mouth, trusting my wits and the winds of fortune to provide when cash got tight. It wasn’t the luxury that drew my eye, though, it was the idea of a stable, secure life. Hell, maybe start a family of my own. Grill up burgers in the backyard and play catch with my kids instead of chasing nightmares in the dark.

  I felt guilty just for imagining it. You’d fuck it up just like your old man did. You’re poison and you know it, so drop the daydreams and stay focused on the job.

  I walked a little faster. I wanted to get the taste of this place out of my mouth.