“Well, we trained together in the early days, before the war. Never served together, but I could tell some stories. I don’t believe I’ve ever met a mage who loved blowing things up as much as Tristan.” He laughed the laugh of a man reminiscing. “Anyway, why do you ask?”
“Just curious.” I adjusted in my chair. “Were you ever chief?”
“Twice,” he replied, sounding like it was his turn to feel my line of questions were dubious. “Where are you going with this, Mr. Dex?”
“I don’t want this to come off as me being antagonistic, sir, because I truly don’t mean it that way,” I assured him, “but how did you handle it when your Directors withheld information that you felt put you and your officers in harm’s way?”
I heard his knuckles rapping gently on the table in front of him. Obviously, I’d struck a nerve. If he took my question as intended, maybe I’d get a decent answer; if not, he’d likely chew me out.
“Take this for what it is, Mr. Dex,” he said finally, using a slow cadence. “Decisions are made that seem right at the time, but unexpected variables arise and dash all hope.” He continued tapping the table. “When you learn of fresh challenges, your perspective changes and you find yourself doing the unthinkable. It’s done for the greater good…or at least you believe that to be true, but you still have to live with those decisions.”
I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, unless this was just daily cop stuff. Half my life was doing the unthinkable while believing it was for the greater good, or at least hoping it was. But I had a feeling O was talking about something deeper than that.
“Is this about the ubers?” I ventured.
“It’s about the depth of authority that one at my level deals with, Mr. Dex. When you were a civilian, you had responsibilities just like everyone else. But then you became an officer and those responsibilities grew. Now that you’re a chief, they’re even greater than before.” He sniffed. “Imagine the level of responsibility you’ll feel on the day you sit in my chair.”
That cut to the core, and he was right. The shit I dealt with as chief towered over what I’d had to deal with before I was ever a cop. The line between life and death was often a decision away for me these days.
“I understand,” I said, though I truly did not want to admit it. “Thanks for your candor.”
“It’s the least I can do,” he said. “Do note that all of us want to provide you with everything you need to get your job done safely and effectively. We don’t go out of our way to see our officers destroyed, after all. But there are times when too much knowledge can actually be more detrimental than not enough.”
I couldn’t fathom that being the case, but I decided to let it go for now. It wasn’t like my arguing the point would do anything but turn a reasonable conversation into a pissing contest.
“We’ll do the best we can, then,” I announced, feeling a little invigorated.
“I know, Mr. Dex,” he replied, “and you should know that we do appreciate it.”
Chapter 14
I honestly had no desire to meet with my crew at the moment. Tensions were high and I was the primary cause of that. Plus, I knew Chuck and Serena would sense the vampire side of me, especially because I was certainly going to have a territorial reaction to them. How they managed to be around each other was beyond me. I guess it’s just something they dealt with growing up. As for the mages, Jasmine already knew something was up, as did Rachel, obviously, but I had the feeling Griff would pick up on the truth of things immediately. He’d been around for a long time, after all, and he was obviously the leader in the Vegas PPD when it came to mages. Rachel and Jasmine were his peers as officers, yes, but they deferred to him nine times out of ten when it came to magic. Translation: Griff knew his shit, and that meant he’d spot me a mile away.
Regardless, the meeting had to happen.
The only thing I could hope for was that they’d maintain their professionalism.
That went double for me.
I walked into the conference room and took my spot at the head of the table. It felt like I’d walked into a vat of gel. The emotions were ripping at me from all angles, each jockeying for position at the top of the ladder.
I had to keep it together.
“Before we get started,” I announced, keeping my eyes on the table, “I just want to say that I know I’ve been a bit irritable this morning.” I glanced at Rachel. “We had an argument.” Obviously a lie. “The fact, though, is that our relationship should have no bearing on our professional life. We will resolve that and learn to separate church and state, as it were.” I cleared my throat and sat up in a more positive way. “That said, please accept my apologies on the matter and let’s get back to work.”
Nobody said anything, but as I scanned the room it was obvious everyone knew something was up. I would have to take control of this quickly.
“Okay, what’s the word on the goblins?” I asked, looking at Chuck. “Find anything?”
“Uh…” He shook himself back from wherever his mind had drifted. “Sorry. Nothing much, really. Spanx essentially detailed the same thing he’d already told you.”
“We called down to the Netherworld PPD to see if they could give us information on past crimes,” added Serena, sounding like she was fighting to keep control of her voice. I felt the same pull toward her that I’d felt toward Felicia earlier, but this was more refined. Still sexual, but not as animalistic. “There weren’t any correlations with topside people at all. In fact, based on his record and the data in the central archives, this was the first time Spanx had ever been topside.”
“Interesting.”
It begged the question why our mystery man would summon a goblin who was unfamiliar with how things worked up here. The only thing I could think of was it had to do with his ability to use magic. But Mr. Mystery had to know that we would be able to defuse that in relatively quick order. It wasn’t like we were all rookies, after all.
“Theories?” I asked the room.
Griff leaned back and crossed his arms, letting out a slow breath. It was good to see him back to one hundred percent. The werewolf attack he’d endured a few weeks back had been pretty brutal, and it had taken him quite a while to recover.
“I propose that we have another ubernatural here,” he remarked. “It reminds me of the mage Reese, in fact. Not that I believe this person is a mage. There isn’t enough information to make that claim as yet. But I sense that we are being tested.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I concurred. “I just hope there aren’t any demon batteries this time around.”
“Or worse,” noted Felicia.
I looked at her with a forced grin. “There’s worse?”
“Ian, sweetie,” Lydia interrupted over the room’s speaker, “it appears that we have a werebear gorging at the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar’s Palace.”
“You’re kidding,” I grumbled.
“Sorry, puddin’.”
My head fell forward and I groaned, wanting to just grab the table and start swinging it around.
I was going to have to take up meditation or something.
Slowly, I glanced up at Griff and said, “Looks like we’re in for another of Mr. Mystery’s tests.”
Chapter 15
“So, how did it go with the Directors?” Rachel asked on our ride over to Caesar’s.
“Exactly as you’d expect,” I answered, right before turning onto East Flamingo. “We were all just sharing surface stuff. EQK did suspect me, but nobody else did.”
I then thought back to my conversation with O, wondering if I should share that with Rachel or not. O didn’t expressly say I shouldn’t, but it was kind of a personal chat. I glanced over at her and decided she was the only real person I could confide in. The more she knew, the more she could help me through whatever the hell I was dealing with here.
“O direct-connected and asked me to stay after the others left,” I said slowly. “He just wanted to check on my w
ell-being.”
She shifted. “Do you think he knows?”
“No,” I answered, but then added, “Mages can’t tell that stuff from a distance, can they?”
“Depends on the distance,” she said. “Definitely not through a connection like you guys use in there, though.”
I nodded. It didn’t seem likely, but I had to make sure. While mages could read energy signatures just fine, they were only as good with body language as anyone else. Pixies won the award for picking up on physical cues, but everyone else was average at that game.
“Thought so. Anyway, he was pointing out how difficult it is to be in his position.” We stopped at the light across from Caesar’s. “Compared it to my position as chief. Responsibility differences from being an officer and all that.”
“Right.”
“It wasn’t much more than that,” I said, shrugging as the light turned green, “but it was enough to make me feel like he genuinely gave a shit, ya know?”
“Either that or he was suspicious and trying to see what kind of information you were hiding.” She scraped the leather on her pants with her fingernail. “One of the techniques mages use to gain information is to confide in a person, Ian. It gets you to think they’re on your side, then you let down your guard so they can unravel deeper thoughts you may have.”
I laughed. “Doesn’t everyone do that?”
“Well, yes,” she admitted, “but remember that mages use distraction to fool the eye just as much as they use real magic.” She started scratching at the leather again. “Did you tell him anything that you wouldn’t have told him if all the Directors had been present?”
“Nothing that I can think of,” I replied, thinking through our conversation. “If anything, he was the one spilling his guts.”
“So you didn’t ask any questions or anything?” she pressed, but she did so gently. “It’s probably nothing, but I’m just checking.”
“I asked him if he ever walked the beat and if he was ever chief.” We found a place to park and I shut down the Aston Martin. Usually, I’d just go with valet parking, but I knew my crew was already on the scene. They could handle the werebear. “He just rattled off the places he’d served, told me that he’d trained with Tristan Montague, and then went into a long diatribe about responsibilities.”
“Why would he bring Monty into the discussion?”
I looked at her. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” she declared. “Because O, Monty, and Griff all trained together back then.”
“So?”
“So O’s telling you that he knows Griff very well.”
“Ah,” I said, sitting back in my seat. Then, I looked at her again. “He was?”
Rachel gave me a dull look and sighed. I tilted my head and showed her my tired eyes. While she may have just had some epiphany about all of this, I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.
Obviously, she recognized she was teetering on being too impatient. She put her hand on mine and smiled.
“I don’t know for sure,” she said, “but my guess is that O did notice something is up with you. Probably not the magic, but rather some other tell…” She paused. “You didn’t have your fangs out, did you?”
I grimaced at her.
“Right, no. Sorry.” She sniffed. “Well, again, he probably noticed something, and my guess is that he assumed you’d tell us about his conversation.”
“Why would he assume that?”
“Because you have constantly been saying how you keep your officers informed,” she replied. “Mages don’t miss things like that, Ian. We listen.”
“Good to know,” I said in a measured tone.
“I am a mage, remember?” She smirked. “Again, I don’t know for certain what O’s plan is, but if he brought up Monty out of the blue, that means he’s tying something together. My guess is he’s telling you that Griff might be able to help you out.”
I shook my head at this level of deduction. It made no sense to me, but I was pretty new to this advanced level of magic. Regardless of the fact that the magical element itself wasn’t where Rachel and O learned this aspect of maging, it was still a mage tactic. One that clearly came from years of study.
“I don’t pretend to know how you unraveled that yarn,” I declared as I reached for the door handle, “and I honestly have a hard time believing it to be accurate, but I’ll take your word for it.” I stopped just before getting out of the car. “Wait. If you’re right, and O does want me to talk to Griff about whatever it is that’s going on with me, could that mean that Griff reports things back to O?”
Rachel went to open her mouth but stopped and looked away with concern.
“Shit,” she said. “You might be right.”
Chapter 16
By the time we got to the buffet in Caesar’s, there was a pretty large crowd standing around watching the show.
Paula was already there, arms crossed, but I put out my hand at her to signal that she should hold her complaints until the werebear was contained. Frankly, I couldn’t see a way for her to spin this one. Goblins in gangster suits at New York-New York was a match made in heaven, but a werebear tearing through the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar’s Palace? Not so much.
Oh well.
Not my problem.
What was my problem was in the process of rushing toward the dessert section. A fully morphed werebear who I’d guess stood about eight feet tall on his…no, on her hind legs. Great, a lady bear. Hopefully there weren’t any baby bears around or this would really suck.
“Rachel and I have arrived,” I announced through the connector. “I see a female bear here. Someone please tell me there aren’t any cubs.”
“No cubs, Chief,” answered Chuck, “but this bear is acting like there are. Nobody can even get close to the food. She’s going berserk.”
“Fortunately, she’s keeping inside the buffet area,” noted Jasmine.
That was good, at least. A wandering bear wreaking havoc was far worse than a stationary bear who was defending her territory. Defense we could manage. Chasing a bear through a hotel full of normals, on the other hand, was not a pleasant prospect.
“We have to keep her contained here,” I said more for myself than anyone else. “I want coverage on the main entrances. Warren, are you here?”
“Yeah, Chief?”
“Good. Work with hotel security and get everyone back. This isn’t going to be pretty, unless the bear decides to give up.” As if on cue, the creature roared and smashed down on a table. “Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”
“Got it, Chief,” he replied.
I knew Warren wasn’t one who was fond of standing toe to toe with anything overly threatening. He was great with skeletons because they had no muscles and were really easy to destroy, but a werebear was covered in muscle and was vicious as fuck. One slap from her massive claws and Warren would be deader than dead. He’d be halved.
“Everyone else, cover me and Rachel.”
“What?” she choked aloud. “I don’t want to go in there with that thing.”
I squinted at her. “You’re a cop, Rachel. It’s your job.”
“You know, I get that you want to make sure you’re not seen as playing favorites with me,” she remarked, “but that doesn’t mean you throw me under the bus at every turn either.”
“Wait a second here,” I said as a grin formed on my face. “Are you afraid of werebears?”
“Only when they’re attacking,” she replied. “Big claws, big jaws, big muscles, able to rip us to shreds without even breaking a sweat, have a tendency to—”
“They can sweat?”
“Uh…I don’t know, asshole.” She scowled. “That’s not the point.”
I could have done without the “asshole” remark, but I had it coming, and it was an indicator that Rachel wasn’t currently fawning over me.
“We’re doing this, Rachel,” I said firmly.
“Ugh.”
W
e walked toward the werebear with measured steps. It followed us with red eyes. They weren’t smoldering, but I had a feeling that when they did, they’d overshadow my newfound ability in that area.
A low growl escaped her maw and her paws flexed.
She was readying to attack.
“She’s going to hit us here in a second, gang,” I connected. “Get your guns and spells ready. Do. Not. Miss. We can’t afford a stray spell or bullet striking a normal. Is that clear?”
They affirmed my command in unison.
I directed Rachel to go to the right while I went left. The werebear kept her eyes on me. At least that would buy Rachel some time to get her magic flowing.
The rumble of the beast’s throat was getting louder and she began scratching the table top she was standing behind. I honestly had little desire to feel what that table was experiencing, but I had the sneaking suspicion a swipe or two was in my future.
“Okay, girl,” I said in a soothing voice as I held my hands up in a show of submission, “everything is going to be okay. We just want to talk.”
“No you don’t,” she objected, her voice grating so badly that it was barely understandable. “You want to take away my food. I’m not stupid.”
“It’s not your food, I’m afraid,” I replied as diplomatically as I could. “This place belongs to the hotel. All those people out there have paid to eat here.”
Her eyes swept over the crowd menacingly. “Then they will die.”
“You can’t kill all of them,” I was quick to point out. “Yeah, you’re big and strong, but even you can’t take down that many people.”
Her growl became more pronounced.
“Maybe not,” she said, her nostrils flaring, “but I can sure as fuck take you down.”
With a speed that no creature of that size should possess, she launched her full weight at me with claws extended.
“Shit!” I yelled as we crashed to the ground.
Chapter 17
Curse of Fangs: An Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Book 6 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department) Page 6
