by Jenn Stark
“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked.
He jerked, looking up at me with a mixture of relief and interest. “I could ask the same of you. Are you okay?”
“Of course I am. I was back there searching for any information that might’ve come over the transom regarding Dr. Rindon, but I’ve got nothing. It seems crazy that he might be just a stooge caught up with some very bad people, but I can’t prove otherwise right now.”
“Agreed,” Brody said, sighing heavily. “We’ve definitely confirmed that he’s on the agenda for the Global Disaster Recovery Summit in New Orleans next week, though. Simon’s done me the solid of tracking weather patterns for the next seven days with a pretty damn remarkable level of detail. I think we’re going to have a pretty quiet few days, which should mean that nothing will keep this guy from his appearance at the conference. With any luck, no more Connecteds will get stuck full of kill juice.”
He grimaced. “I have to say, I hope he’s not doing that. The idea of somebody willfully going out and targeting an entire subset of human beings, taking away what makes them special just because it doesn’t fit their predetermined agenda of what special is and who should qualify, bothers me. A lot. At least murder is clean, as strange as that is to say.”
Strange or not, I knew what he meant. I didn’t understand why the Shadow Court was targeting the specific groups they were, but their overall agenda, if it was their agenda, couldn’t be clearer. They were getting rid of the outliers, the Connecteds who they felt did not deserve to be part of the anointed group of psychics and seers. How they determined who made the cut was worth exploring, but even trying to justify their activities as the result of rational thought grated on my nerves. It was wrong on a soul-deep level.
And the Council had to—I had to—do something about it. To both protect the Connecteds being targeted, and help them protect themselves.
Somehow.
“Will you be able to come down with us when we go to the conference?” I asked. “Or will you be caught up here?”
Brody made another face. “It seems I’ll be joining you, which I should be happy about except for the reasons why. Turns out somebody put a bug in the ear of Interpol that there’s some transnational drug trade on tap for the summit. It’s too close to the events in Hamburg for anyone to take any chances, and they know I know most of the players already. In other words, I’m going, but it’s under the auspices of Interpol. It ties tangentially to the case of the fire bombings, but since nothing has happened on that front for several days, no one’s too upset over it anymore. We even got credit for the missing person turning back up, Rhonda Madsen. So the brass is pleased. For the moment, anyway.”
As if the mention of the Farraday High School student broke the spell of peace we were under, a loud rapping sound came at the door.
“Yo. Room service.”
Mrs. French hastened over and swung the door wide, and Nikki sailed in, her arms laden with takeout boxes.
“Well, helloooo! The prodigal Sara returns.” She handed off one of the bags to Mrs. French and carried the other one forward. The smell of bacon, eggs, and fried bread permeated the air, and my stomach growled loudly.
“And not a second too soon, looks like.” Nikki chuckled. She quickly handed out sandwiches and another huge cup of coffee, both of which I accepted gratefully. “You find anything in the back about Dr. Rin Tin?”
“That would be negative,” I said. “We’re just going to have to see what, if anything, happens in New Orleans. But I don’t like that.”
“It’s not like we are completely without a clue,” Nikki said reasonably. “Now that we know what he might be up to, it’s just a matter of making sure that the Connecteds are more educated than they ordinarily would be. If he tries anything fancy, they’ll be ready. And if he ends up sticking the wrong person with his miracle juice, they should have people on hand who can help make things right again. You can’t be everywhere, and neither can the Magician. The people are going to have to take care of themselves.”
“Which reminds me,” Brody said around a mouthful of egg sandwich. “What’s up with Armaeus? He seems a little more wound up than usual. You notice that?”
Before I could so much as nod in the affirmative, Nikki clasped her hands together. “Do you know what he needs? I know what he needs, he needs to relax a little bit. He needs to let his hair down and shake his booty and have a good time. It couldn’t be more obvious: he needs a party. It just so happens we have a party coming up.”
Taking advantage of the fact that I was choking on my own sandwich, Nikki continued on. “Brody, you’re gonna have to be there, and you’re gonna have to resemble a human being, not the bottom of the laundry cart. The Shadow Court absolutely knows that this party is happening, and they may well put in an appearance.”
“You think so, too?” I finally sputtered. The more I’d thought about Viktor talking with the unknown women in the Stratosphere bar, the more I feared we were heading for another Shadow Court demonstration, tailored to cause me maximum pain. They’d certainly excelled at it so far.
“Girl. You think the RV Roving Ramblers or whatever the hell they’re calling themselves showed up by chance? No way. The Shadow Court will be anywhere they know you’ll be, ready to throw something at you to get you off your game, even if they’re only doing it to jerk you around, which seems to be their new favorite game. But I don’t think they’re going to be content with jerking you around for long. I think they’re going to strike, and when they do, I think they’re going to hurt someone. Don’t ask me how I know. I just feel it.”
I sighed. For all her flamboyance, Nikki had been a cop for a lot of years, and a damned good one. I knew in my gut she was right.
“Agreed,” I said. “We need to cancel this party.”
“No can do,” she said, way too cheerfully. “What we need is every in-person opportunity we can get with agents of the Shadow Court. We weren’t prepared at Burning Man when they threw their little haymaker at us. They caught us off guard. This time, when one of them shows up to screw with you, we need to put a collar on him. We’ll put him in a box with Gamon, and we’ll find out what we find out. But we can’t just run and hide. They’re too eager to get our attention, so I say, let them come. I’ve already got a team of makeover professionals standing at the ready to transform you, dollface, I guarantee you that. You can bet the rest of your little gang of high schoolers will be dolling up as well, and you need to represent.”
I squinted at her. “These people all graduated ten years ago. They have lives. They’re not going to be trying to outdo each other.”
Nikki snorted. “Maybe if it was a thirty-year high school reunion with a bunch of worn-down fifty-year-olds. But ten years out, are you kidding? This is going to be prime territory for outdoing each other. Each one is going to be worse than the next. But once again, that’s going to play to our advantage. Lots of flash, lots of action, lots of business to lure the Shadow Court out to play, if any of them are snooping around.”
I couldn’t argue with that, though I didn’t like it. “What kind of precautions are we going to put in place? Are we going to have police detail there, people undercover?”
Brody was already shaking his head. “We ask for that kind of show of force, I’m gonna have to give some explanation. I’m not sure exactly how I’d word ‘protection for the Shadow Court bait’ on the request form.”
Nikki waved him off. “Lucky for you, you’re not going to have to. I’ve got five card-carrying members of the Arcana Council who are champing at the bit to attend this shindig. I’d say they can provide plenty of protection for the rank and file.”
“Please tell me you’re joking,” I said, wincing.
“We’ve got you, the Magician, the Devil, the High Priestess, and Simon—and that’s just your first responders. We should be prepared for the Emperor to show up because the boy just can’t help but be curious, and rumor has it that Death recently hit town again.”
I stared at her. “There is no way that Death wants to go to my high school reunion.”
“I guess we’re just going to have to see who shows up, then,” Nikki said, grinning broadly. “But I would pay no small amount of money to see her knock out the Macarena, I can tell you that right now.”
I sank deeper into the couch. “This is going to be a nightmare,” I muttered.
“Well, it’s a nightmare that’s starting in a little less than twelve hours, dollface. So choppity choppity, we need to get you ready.”
20
The party was going strong by the time I arrived at the MGM Grand’s Level Up bar, which, according to the website, was a playground of adult gaming and interaction. From what I could remember of my classmates at Farraday High, this was not a group I automatically would have expected to be into gaming. Then again—how well did I really know these people?
I stepped over a thin layer of snow-white glitter that stretched across the entryway and disappeared into the shadows alongside the walls, and studied the woman taking names at the door. She was a cheerful blonde with bright blue eyes and cotton-candy-pink lips who immediately assured me that I didn’t need to feel bad about not recognizing her, as she’d started school at Farraday after I’d left. I didn’t have the heart to explain that I fully planned on not recognizing most of the people here tonight, and instead asked her about the choice of party venues.
“Oh right, the gaming thing,” she said, bubbling over with laughter. I suspected she bubbled a lot. “That was to try to get more guys to come. It worked too. We totally will have about thirty guys here tonight, way more than we would’ve ordinarily, because, you know everyone’s working and all that. But hey, it’s Vegas, best excuse ever to get away for the weekend, right?”
I nodded and stepped into the room. Nikki had wanted us to show up together, but there was only so much crazy I was willing to deal with at once. I also reasoned that I might actually get further if I arrived solo, considering the mystery student who’d reached out to me earlier this week with the cryptic note of “See you this weekend.” After Linda Simms had confirmed that she hadn’t sent anything to me before Rhonda’s disappearance, and given Rhonda’s safe return and their reunion, I assumed that the real claimant would come out of the woodwork. That…hadn’t happened. Now I made a beeline for the bar, praying I would make it to gainful drinking before things got really awkward.
No such luck.
“Oh my God, Sariah Pelter!”
I turned with my ready-made smile, vaguely recognizing the voice if not the person staring at me now, her hair dyed platinum and descending in a pile of sumptuous curls. “You don’t recognize me, right? Nobody does but oh my God, I recognize you. You look so much better than I remember, though.”
I smiled far more sincerely now. Score one for Nikki Dawes.
It was true; Nikki truly had outdone herself. In addition to actual blown-out hair and makeup, I wore a simple but elegant dark gray shift cinched with a leather belt, black boots, and a black over-the-shoulder bag that contained my trusty Tarot cards, a few tools of my trade as Justice, and a vial of Novadrine antitoxin that Simon had finalized that afternoon. Chances were I wasn’t going to need it, as my own built-in healing mechanisms had already served me well against the anti-Connected drug, but it still made me feel better to have it. There was simply too much about the situation I didn’t understand yet.
“So, I’ll give you a hint. Angie. Do you remember me now?” The woman opposite me pushed, tossing her impressive hair. I studied her with growing alarm, but a second later I was saved from outing myself when another classmate jostled by her, then stopped, patently impressed. “Oh, wow—Angie Malone? Are you serious? You look absolutely fabulous!”
She instantly turned. “David! I didn’t think you were coming!”
I escaped, making it to the bar without any further molestation, and got as far as ordering a Glenmorangie neat before the next person jostled my arm. I grabbed my drink first, then turned. And blinked.
“Ah…Bill?”
The man beside me looked exactly the same as he had the last day I’d seen him in chemistry class, two days before the fire, simply a little smoother around the edges. Bill Compton was probably the smartest kid in our class, and the quietest too—far more comfortable with his books and laptop than he ever had been making conversation. He’d been an awesome lab partner, though, able to see connections that I could only guess at and point out where I was going wrong with every formula.
Bill had aged in only the best possible ways in the past ten years, a little taller, a little more fleshed out, a little paler, probably the result of sitting behind either lab equipment or a computer screen, probably both.
“You look great,” I said and meant it. “Are you doing well?”
Bill chuckled. “Well enough. I didn’t realize you were local.”
I lifted my glass. “What gave me away?”
He shrugged. “There’s no way you would’ve come to this unless you lived in the area. The only reason I agreed to it was because I happened to be coming here already for a conference. Figured what the heck. My wife wanted me to come as well, said it would be good for people to see how I turned out.” He laughed a little. “Do you remember Carrie Simmons? She was a freshman when we graduated.”
“After my time.”
“Right, right.” He grimaced. “Sorry, it all runs together sometimes. Anyway, she and I didn’t even get together until after I graduated, but now we’re married, two kids, dog—the whole nine yards. It’s good.”
I couldn’t figure out exactly what to say, but my heart did a little weird shimmy as I watched him. “You seem happy,” I finally managed.
He nodded, blushed a little. “I am happy. I know that’s not a very popular attitude for our demographic, but I have to say I am. I love what I do. I love why I do it. And that makes me more hopeful than most people. You’re good too? What are you up to these days?”
“Ah…I’m sort of in law, you could say. Not a lawyer, exactly, but on that spectrum.”
“Really! I wouldn’t have pegged you for that. But you’re happy too?”
“Sure.” I smiled, and an image of the Magician flared behind my eyes, followed by Nikki and Brody and even Justice Hall. “I don’t really think about that too much, but sure.”
“You should think about it. It matters more than you’d expect.” He tilted his glass at me, then glanced around the bar. “I’ll make the rounds here a couple of times, then head back to my room. I have a talk at my conference tomorrow.”
“I think it’s a great idea to get out of here as quickly as possible no matter what your excuse is,” I said wryly.
“Fair enough. I’m glad I saw you, though.” He genuinely did look happy. It affected me more than I expected it to. He raised his glass, and I suspected it contained nothing stiffer than tonic water, but I amiably raised my scotch to match.
“To being happy, then,” he said. We touched glasses, and I flicked open my third eye out of habit. I saw it then. The thinnest wisp of Connected ability, which Bill’s gentle spirit was fanning into greater life with each passing year. Now that made me happy.
No sooner had Bill moved off to complete his wife’s mission of proving to our class how awesome he was than the trio of Mary Clemson, Patty McGee, and Amy Franks came rushing up to me.
“See?” Mary announced triumphantly, dark brown curls bouncing. “I told you she would come. She has to come, she lives here. It would be totally rude for her not to come. Plus, she already came to the party at the Stratosphere, so why wouldn’t she come to the main event?”
“Standing right here,” I offered.
“So tell me everything, like all of it!” Amy insisted, her eyes wide. She’d paired her blonde hair and blue eyes with a soft pink dress that made her seem seventeen all over again. “What is it like living in Las Vegas, and do you ever sleep? I don’t know that I would ever sleep. It’s so bright all the time. At least on t
he Strip. Do you live down here, on the Strip? That would be insane.”
I opened my mouth to respond, and Patty broke in, tilting her head with a wry smile. “Well, are you going to show her what we did?” Her perfectly styled ginger hair shifted in front of her face, and it briefly caught my attention. How did these people make their hair this pretty without a Nikki of their own?
But Mary was already digging in her purse. “We found the cutest way to commemorate this weekend—and you, secretly,” she said, pulling out a sheaf of thin plastic strips. “We’re giving them to everyone in the class. They’re a total hit!”
“Commemorate me?” I frowned down at the strip she handed me. It was a temporary tattoo featuring a spray of tiny stars.
“Absolutely,” Mary said. “Tiffany had one of the guys recording my handstand with her phone in the Stratosphere, and he caught you on camera diving in front of me when that light fell and all the electrical sparks went everywhere.”
“The…ah, light,” I said, struggling to follow what Mary thought she’d seen.
“Yes, remember? The bar, the handstand, the kind of mini-explosion that was out before it even really started?” Mary flapped the remaining collection of tattoos at me. “We saw stars. And you sacrificed yourself for me to make sure I didn’t get hurt, and I wanted everyone to know it.” She twisted her hand to show me the arc of skin between her thumb and index finger. Sure enough, it was decorated with a tiny spray of stars.
