by P. R. Frost
“Like Half Moon Lake, Washington?” Lucia lowered her voice enough that I almost couldn’t hear her through the thick door.
“Precisely. Invest the forty percent I need to start building, and I’ll either buy you out in five years or you’ll start earning handsome dividends.” I recognized the subtle magic of Donovan’s ability to persuade creeping into his voice.
“I do not like dividends. I like profits. I control the entire enterprise or it does not happen.” Lucia bit each word off precisely, adding steel to her determination.
I sensed they’d reached a major impasse. They’d repeated these arguments over and over and gotten nowhere.
“I can go elsewhere for the money.” Donovan slammed something, maybe his fist, against the desk. He had a temper, worse than mine. I’d been on the receiving end of it when he let his emotions get the better of his good sense during a fencing match. I still bore the scar on my right forearm. It would heal eventually. Not soon enough to my mind.
“Where?” Lucia asked sweetly. “I have made certain that no one in Las Vegas will lend you anything.”
“Gary Gregbaum owes me. Therefore, his silent partner Junior Sancroix also owes me. I’ll give them a theater designed for the show. Junior doesn’t have to compromise The Crown Jewels and his financial arrangements with you. We’ll attract people away from Vegas just to see the show, let alone every Kajiri in Vegas just trying to blend in. I’m helping him move his dancers tonight.”
Mickey, Gollum, and I shared frightened glances at that. “We have to get the dancers first,” I mouthed.
They nodded.
“Gregbaum wouldn’t dare,” Lucia hissed.
“What has he got to lose?”
In the moment of silence that followed, I decided to knock on the door. It was already five past one.
“Enter!” Lucia ordered.
“I’ll be leaving you to your other business,” Donovan said angrily. “This discussion is not over yet.”
“You will stay,” Lucia replied. “This discussion requires your cooperation. I will owe you a favor. Perhaps a forty percent favor. Perhaps less.”
I pushed open the door to find Donovan leaning over a massive ebony desk, both fists planted on the glossy top. Lady Lucia sat across from him in a high-backed chair that molded to her frame. Today she wore a long red skirt and a black silk shirt. A red suede blazer was draped across one end of the massive desk.
Every one of the six windows in the wall behind her had been painted black. The only illumination came from wall sconces with electrified candles that flickered like real flame.
As I walked across the ten feet that separated us, I expected Scrap to disappear. He remained firmly on my shoulder, tail wrapped around my neck, in Donovan’s presence.
“Either Lucia’s evil overcomes Donovan’s power to push you away, or you’ve overcome some darkness in your soul so that gargoyles don’t repel you any longer,” I whispered to my buddy.
You got that right, babe. Almost worth the price of my warts to know you and me can take this cheater down together. He’s sleeping with Lucia by the way.
“Tell me something I didn’t already suspect. He’s not picky about his bed partners.”
Chapter 42
Gambling debts are now legally enforceable in all states.
DONOVAN CURSED LOUDLY and fluently when he saw me enter the room. He slammed his fist into the desk again, this time leaving a dent.
“Tsk, tsk,” Lucia clucked. “Temper, temper.”
Donovan jerked upright. “I’m outta here.”
“No,” Lucia ordered.
Everyone in the room stilled, even Scrap.
“You will stay, Donovan. You will listen, and in the end, if you want any help with your great enterprise, you will assist me in any way I deem appropriate.” Her accent slid toward French and away from Italian. Natural, I guess since I now knew it to be her birth language. Like my mother. I knew the inflections and the tendency to emphasize the last syllable well.
Funny, my mom hadn’t lapsed into her own baby talk version of Québécois since coming to Vegas. She’d found herself on this journey. She no longer needed to cling to a past she couldn’t reclaim. At least some part of this trip was a success.
Thinking about my mom, I wondered at Lucia’s interest in her the other night.
The lady flashed a bit of fang at Donovan. I figured I’d probably confront her in private. Later. Mom wasn’t singing tonight, so Lucia couldn’t approach her in the lounge.
“You aren’t taking the dancers tonight, Donovan,” I said crisply. I braced my feet and held my hands loosely at my sides ready to command Scrap into weapon form.
I sensed Gollum and Mickey moving behind and beside me, to give me space and watch my back if necessary.
“Who’s going to stop me?” Donovan sneered.
“I am. Because I’m taking them back to Faery tonight.” I wished Scrap would turn red as a precursor to transforming.
Instead, he moved to the top of my head and hissed. A lot of good that would do. But also a signal that neither Donovan nor Lucia posed a serious threat to me at this moment.
“Good one, Tess. In case you didn’t get the memo, Faery is closed until they restore the balance within.” Donovan threw back his head and laughed.
“The only way to restore the balance is to return the dancers to their home. While they are here, they drain energy and faery gold into this dimension.”
“Faery gold?” Lucia asked.
“They gamble with it,” Gollum said.
“The gold remains gold as long as it is inside the building. But it turns to dross the moment it leaves.” Mickey quirked a mischievous smile at our hostess.
Now it was her turn to laugh. “So that is why the accounting is always short. The managers aren’t skimming and the owners are losing money at gaming because they host ‘Fairy Moon,’ drawing ticket holders away from the slots.” Lucia almost wept with mirth. “They didn’t have to sell. They merely needed to cancel the show and evict Gregbaum.”
“That doesn’t change anything. The faeries can’t get home,” Donovan said. “That’s the Powers That Be wielding their power for power’s sake and not thinking through the consequences. They’re good at that.”
“You’d enjoy making the Powers That Be look foolish, wouldn’t you, Donovan,” I said. I almost smiled, too, but didn’t want to play my ace too quickly.
“Damned right I would. They haven’t done me any favors lately.” He began to pace, a sure sign of his discomfort. He had an amazing quality of stillness when he needed it; a leftover from the centuries he’d spent watching the world pass by. Most of the time he made up for those centuries of watching and waiting with vigorous action, pacing when there was nothing else he could do.
“I’ve got news for you.” I smiled as sweetly as I could.“There’s a back way in. But I’m the only one who can find it. Help me tonight, and I’m sure the Powers That Be will make note in their scorekeeping.”
“I’m not going to help you do anything.” Donovan aimed his restless steps toward the door.
“You will help her,” Lucia insisted. Her quiet voice filled the room with authority. She half stood and leaned forward, revealing just a hint of fang. In the uncertain light, the white streaks of hair at her temples showed clearly—like a hereditary birthmark among the Damiri. Except those were artificial sun streaks in blonde hair. Weren’t they?
Scrap, explain.
Expensive dye job. Underneath, her hair is as black as Donovan’s heart or Fortitude’s skin.
Donovan had those wings of silver hair, as did his foster father Darren. My deceased husband Dill had the beginnings of white at his temples. But then, he was a lot younger than Donovan.
But the Damiri always give their children names that began with D and usually ended with N. I sent that thought to Scrap.
Dunno. He lit up a new black cherry cheroot with a bit of flame at the tip of his finger. The demon blood is pretty mu
ch diluted in her. Maybe her folks didn’t know.
Or maybe it’s a more modern custom.
I felt a shrug from Scrap. Maybe, maybe not.
“Why do I have to help? You’ve already turned me down on financing.” Donovan faced her, fists clenched, shoulders hunched. I half expected him to lift his arms and spread bat wings.
Quickly, I banished that image from my mind before it made me curl into a fetal ball in a corner gibbering in panic.
“With this new proposition on the table, financing can be renegotiated.” She sat again, the atmosphere around her fading from menace to sweetness and possibilities.
“Sixty-forty split, we build in Half Moon Lake, and the new corporation is in the name of my choosing,” he spat back at her.
“Gaming laws?” she countered.
“Nominal tribal affiliation on the spa. This is an extension of that project.”
“Have your lawyer call my lawyer. They will draw up the contracts. Usual signature practices.” Meaning they signed in blood. If either of them broke faith with the contract their blood would burn in their bodies, as if the contracts burned, too.
“Can we get back to the dancers?” I interrupted.
“Easy. I drive the bus. You three ambush us and take the dancers to the destination of your choice.” Donovan dismissed us.
“What about his soldiers? What about the magic net around the Dragon and St. George? What’s to keep him from extending that net to include the bus?”
“What magic net?” Donovan asked.
I looked to Lucia. She seemed disinclined to meet anyone’s gaze. Okay. So she knew about the net, but she didn’t want to talk about it.
Why?
So I told Donovan about the spell that would immolate the faery dancers the moment they left the building, and about the stronger one around the dormitory.
“You’ve got to be kidding. No one in this dimension can work that kind of magic. Other dimensions, yes. But the energy fields are all wrong on Earth.”
“Are they? Are you forgetting about the energy leaks out of Faery?” I asked. A wave of weariness washed through me. The better part of valor seemed to be for me to take the visitor’s chair resting at an odd angle across from Lucia. It looked like Donovan had thrust it out of the way, hard, at some point in the earlier argument.
Good move, babe. Puts you in a position of authority. Scrap chuckled. He hopped onto the desk and waggled his ears at Lucia.
She didn’t seem to notice him. I hoped she couldn’t see his disrespectful strutting. We still didn’t know the extent of her power or her deadliness.
“You know how the net was set,” I addressed Lucia.
“How would I know such a thing?” She gestured expansively, reverting to her fake Italian accent.
“You were intimate with Gregbaum at the time he started the show. I suspect you financed him as part of the relationship. He did something to split you up, now you want revenge, to destroy him. The thing he values most is that show. You have to close it.”
The ring in my belt pack nearly burned with the need to be back on my hand. Or I lusted to show off that diamond. I don’t know which.
“I may have watched Gregbaum dance around the building, setting candles and chanting strange words that Junior Sancroix dictated,” she conceded.
“I think you know more than that.” Somewhere in horror fiction I’d read that one must never give a vampire control by engaging their gaze. I ignored it. All vampire fiction anyway.
Lucia squirmed. “How would I know anything of magic?”
“Because when you escaped from the fire that destroyed Castello Continelli, you ran to Faery.” That had to be the default setting on the ring. Faeries made it for a reason. A way to always return home no matter where they were trapped.
“How did you . . .”
I smiled sweetly and gestured toward Scrap. The brat continued to prance and make ugly faces at her.
She didn’t get my meaning. So Scrap blew smoke in her face. She choked and waved it away.
“The imp,” she said matter-of-factly.
“The imp,” I confirmed. “Imps can go anywhere, anywhen. He watched you. Learned something of your history.”
“Something but not all?” she asked archly.
“This is all fascinating, but it’s getting us nowhere,” Donovan interrupted.
“Oh, but it is,” I replied. “I have something you want, Lady Lucia. Something you want very badly. In return, you will give Gollum and Mickey a detailed account of the setting of the spell so that they can find a way to reverse it.”
I toyed with my key chain. The ring was half hidden between my car key and my house key.
Lucia leaned forward a bit. A spark gave life to her overly dilated eyes. She truly was quite beautiful when she wasn’t playing vampire crime boss. Lustrous hair and flawless skin, and a face with symmetrical features and high cheekbones. In human terms she’d reached her prime. In demon terms . . . well I didn’t know what Kajiri considered prime.
“Where did you find it?” Lucia asked breathlessly.
“Do you know the most recent history of the . . . um . . . artifact?”
She shook her head, still leaning forward. If she pushed her reach to the fullest extent, she could snatch the ring from my hand.
I shoved my chair back two inches.
Gollum moved to stand behind me, one hand on my shoulder. More importantly, he stood between me and Donovan. Two days ago I thought Donovan could swat Gollum aside like a pesky fly. Now I wasn’t so sure. Gollum had pushed those mutant faeries a goodly distance with his esoteric martial arts. Donovan coiled enough energy within him, that if used against him, it might knock him through those painted glass panes.
“Donovan, please leave the room,” I said.
“That is not necessary,” Lucia dismissed my request.
“Can you control him when he loses his temper?” I looked only to Lucia.
“How’d you get it?” Donovan snarled, half angry, half amazed. He looked like he wanted to grab the ring, taking my arm off at the shoulder if he had to. His perpetual anger rose off him in hot waves. But he had to go through Gollum to get to me.
I sat back easily, unworried.
“Professional secret. Can you control him?” I repeated.
“Donovan will remain calm.” Lucia sent him to the far corner of the office with a glimpse of her pointed teeth.
“You must understand that this artifact will be returned to you only when the faeries are back home and I have survived the mission,” I hedged. Something deep inside me did not want to share the ring. It kept shouting in my mind that it was MINE.
I tried to believe the imp inside was still coherent enough to understand that Scrap would try to free it. That could only happen if the ring remained in my possession.
If Scrap was bloodthirsty, irreverent, and sarcastic, the trapped imp must be completely evil and insane by this time.
Lucia looked disappointed, but she nodded.
Reluctantly, I flipped the keys so that they nestled in my palm, the ring between them. It caught each nuance of the flickering light and reflected it in a dozen colored shafts. The entire office seemed filled with dancing rainbows.
Lucia’s hand reached for it.
I closed my fist.
She sat back sighing in disappointment. A wistful look of longing and nostalgia crossed her face. (More evidence to me that she wasn’t a vampire. She showed too much emotion for the soulless undead.) “You know it is genuine?” she asked.
“It damned well better be. How’d you get it away from Gregbaum?” Donovan snarled.
“Gary Gregbaum had it all this time?” Feral hunger snarled from her lips.
“Gregbaum only had it a few days. Donovan bought it at auction last December in Paris. He claims to have provenance back to 1850.” Something about the date bothered me.
Scrap had said that Lucia sold the ring to buy food for her child. But the child had been about three in
1819 when she escaped Tuscany to Faery. In human years he’d have been an adult by 1850. Maybe they spent a couple of decades in Faery. Time runs differently there.
“Donovan sold the ring to Gregbaum on Friday, I believe. Or possibly Thursday night,” I returned to the topic at hand. I left out the interlude when the ring could have been mine in the rocking gondola at The Venetian Hotel. No need to revisit that fiasco.
“And you acquired it . . . how?” Lucia asked more politely.
Donovan started pacing again.
He made me nervous. I clasped the ring tightly, then returned it to the inside pouch of the pack.
“I claim the ring by right of inheritance. It belonged to the Noncoiré family for many generations before it came to you, Lady Lucia.”
“How much of that . . . um . . . episode do you know?” she asked arching an eyebrow.
I shrugged. “Only what Scrap told me. That you seduced my ancestor just to get the ring, then hightailed it over the border to marry Continelli, while your lover went off to Napoleon’s war and got himself killed.”
She looked squarely at Scrap. He turned his back to me and some silent communication passed between them.
Instant jealousy rose up in me.
“Very well. You know that the ring was a gift of love; honorable, and genuine.”
I nodded.
“It was mine to keep or sell as I needed.”
“Yes.”
“Gregbaum doesn’t have enough power in him to retain the ring,” Lucia said, glaring at Donovan. “I declare it Tess’ rightful possession for the time being. Spoils of war. When this is all over, Tess will return it to me as a gesture of thanks for my help.”
“Agreed,” Donovan sighed.
“Before the alchemist tricked a faery king to gain possession of the ring, it belonged to my people. It should come to me,” Mickey insisted. For the first time he looked avaricious, bordering on turning into one of the black-and-red faeries if thwarted.
Time to end this.
“Lady Lucia, you have only to give Mickey and Gollum a detailed account of Gregbaum setting the spell and order Donovan to assist me tonight in getting the faeries home. Then the ring is yours.”
