by SGD Singh
The Infernal Guard
Book Two
Descent
SGD Singh
Glory Press
2016
Copyright ©2016 by S.G.D. Singh
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Glory Press
For more information about this and other books by the author, visit www.sgdsingh.com.
Print ISBN 978-1537686455
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events herein are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, is wholly coincidental.
For Kasey
A radiant Savior in her own right
Chapter 1
Unless they’re dead and buried in the desert, you can find anyone in Las Vegas. If you know the right people, you can get to the right cameras. And there are cameras everywhere.
Well, almost everywhere. Jax left the crowds of the Strip and slipped into the quiet space between two towering apartment buildings. Ignoring glass walls that framed plush furniture floating on lakes of granite, she ducked into a narrow alley.
Following it to its end, Jax stood before a rusting metal door with no sign above it. She ran a hand through her spiky brown hair and glared impatiently up and to the left at the black eye shining down at her in the dim light. The one and only camera in the building.
The heavy door was opened almost immediately by an impossibly large man in an impossibly small shirt.
“Ignacio,” Jax said, trying to smile.
Past the shoulder of the bouncer, she could see a courtyard of trees. Tiny white lights twinkled cheerfully amongst their leaves, as if the trees were laughing at humanity’s depravity.
Ignacio raised his eyebrows. “Jax? Is everything okay?” He glanced back at the courtyard, and she saw anxiety cross the giant’s features. “You shouldn’t be—”
“Is Lucas here?”
He hesitated, scanning the alley, and then motioned her inside. “I haven’t seen him in over a month.”
“What time did your shift start?”
“Ten.” Ignacio shrugged. “What, you don’t believe me? He’s not here, Jax.”
She moved to pass him, but Ignacio blocked her faster than she thought his bulk would allow.
“You’re underage,” he said. “And I still remember what happened last time.”
Jax glared, remembering too late she was supposed to charm Ignacio into letting her in. Deep breath. She tried to smile again, willing innocence into her expression. “Let me talk to Ro, Ig. Five minutes. In and out.”
Beg if you have to.
“Please?”
Ignacio blinked down at her in surprise, and his eyes softened. But he shook his head. “Ro is unavailable. Very, extremely unavailable. Big shots from Egypt, or some place.”
“Then let me talk to Zara. Just look the other way for five minutes.” Jax tried to force tears into her eyes, to exude helplessness. Play the little girl. Whatever it takes.
Ignacio looked confused, then laughed. “Don’t hurt yourself. You couldn’t look pitiful if your life depended on it.”
Jax crossed her arms, sighing, and studied her shoes to stop herself from glaring again. “He hasn’t come home in a week. One or two nights is normal, but a week?” She shook her head. “No way. Not Lucas. Something is wrong.”
“Have you looked—”
“I’ve looked everywhere! Don’t you think I’ve looked everywhere? This is the last place I haven’t looked, besides the cameras.”
“Well, he doesn’t come here anymore,” Ignacio said softly. “You know that.”
They stood in silence while Jax refused to meet the big man’s gaze. Refused to see the truth of what he said in his eyes. Lucas wasn’t here.
“How did he seem?”
Jax tried to laugh, but it sounded like a cough. “He seemed like Lucas! Looking like he’s worth fifty-thousand a night, and acting like the most over-protective brother in the universe.”
And trying very hard not to let me see he felt sick.
“And the last time you saw him he was going—”
“To a party at the Bellagio. I already checked. They haven’t seen him since.” Jax stamped a foot. “Ig, just let me talk to Zara. She hears everything. She could know something.”
Ignacio heaved a giant sigh. “All right,” he said finally. Pointing one enormous finger at her, he narrowed his eyes. “But I can’t babysit your ass. You’re on your own once you pass through those doors. And that means behave. There are a lot of very important persons in there who paid for the extreme experience, but not the extreme experience, you know what I’m saying?”
Jax jumped up at his cheek, making a kissing noise. “You are a true hero, Ignacio.” She rushed past him, entering the forest of sparkling trees, and called over her shoulder, “And much hotter than Vin Diesel!”
Ignacio blushed, grinning as he held up a hand. “Five minutes!”
Music pulsed from behind black marble and Jax touched her foot to the stone at the base of a tree, causing hidden doors to slide open. Sound spilled into the courtyard, pounding in her chest, ringing in her ears, and Jax hurried inside as the doors began to slide closed.
She shook her head as she looked around the room, and then began to push her way through barely dressed dancers toward the bar.
Going with the Arctic theme tonight.
The club had been transformed into a wonderland of ice and snow. Blue, green, and white lights glowed within every surface, as if the room itself were carved out of moonlit glaciers. The rainbow of the northern lights danced across human sculptures of such incredible realism that Jax looked twice, wondering if they were actual frozen men and women, captured in ice by the ever-enterprising Ro, to be sold and thawed at customers’ whims.
Jax kept her eyes turned away from the dark corners and kept her mind off the many hidden rooms, as she focused only on reaching Zara.
She had to jump to lean across the tall bar and waved, trying to catch the bartender’s eye. But as with every night, the club was busy, and like every moment of her life, Zara’s attention was in high demand.
According to Ignacio, who heard it from one of his gossip-buddies, Zara was once the highest paid stripper in the City of Las Vegas. The story went that one night, while she was showing clients at a private party a drinking trick involving three wine bottles, six champagne glasses, and twelve shot glasses, she had caught Ro’s attention. They say Ro walked right up to her with a giant wad of cash, whispered something in her ear, and Zara was never seen in public again.
Jax didn’t know if she believed the stripper part of the story. Looking like a stripper and being a stripper were two very different things. But one thing was certain: Ro employed the most beautiful and entertaining bartender in the country, probably the world. Which explained the huge crowd of men and a fair number of women vying for her attention.
Just as Jax was thinking of jumping all the way over the bar, Zara saw her. The bartender’s eyes widened, her dance of glass and liquor stilling for a split second before she nodded, turning back to a customer before Jax could motion for her to hurry.
Jax beat her hands impatiently against the glowing bar. The music made her head pound, and she regretted skipping dinner.
Decidedly solid male genitals pressed against her back at the same time that a hand slid between her arm and ribs, groping around at
her chest.
Jax’s hands stilled. She turned, slow and deliberate, to find herself inches from the face of a confused-looking kid with beautiful dark eyes. He looked barely older than her—twenty, maybe.
“Yeah. You won’t find much there.” Jax showed him her teeth. “I’m told I have a dancer’s physique.”
He raised his hands, grinning stupidly, and leaned closer. The smell of rubbing alcohol filled her nose. “You should get a boob job!” he shouted over the music. “You have a fantastic ass! And a… a nice face, too.”
“Gee, thanks, Vodka Boy.” Jax rolled her eyes, beginning to turn away.
Zara, hurry the hell up already!
He brought an arm around her, holding her in place and squeezing her butt, and Jax fought the urge to stab Vodka Boy with the dagger she kept up her sleeve.
Very important persons. Stabbing definitely falls under the Too Extreme category.
“I’m serious!” he said, but he must have seen something in her eyes, even through his drunken haze, because he removed his hand. His voice trailed off. “I could pay for it… if you want…”
He must have forgotten whatever made him move his hand, because he was pressing himself against her again.
“So sweet of you!” Jax gritted her teeth against the urge to punch something. Leaning toward Vodka Boy, she said, “I’ll tell you what. You get a brain implant and I’ll get breast implants. That way, we’ll both have the full package.”
Vodka Boy blinked his beautiful eyes at her, but didn’t move.
“Of course,” she continued, “the danger of leaking silicone, not to mention your body’s natural immune response, will require surgical upkeep, but all that nonsense about infection and cancer doesn’t mean shit, right? I mean, what do the French know anyway?” Jax slapped his arm. “Chances of intracapsular rupture from blunt trauma are slim with your skull protecting the implant. You’ll only have to worry about hemorrhaging and death, but hey! At least you won’t have to worry about synmastia.”
“Whuh…?” Comprehension struggled to break through his drunken haze, and Jax realized she was looking forward to a fight. Maybe break his fingers first…
Zara was there.
She gave the stranger her most dazzling smile. “Can I get you anything, Your Highness?”
He stared into Zara’s eyes as if hypnotized, but he nodded, and she filled a glass. He looked away to take the glass, and then, the spell broken, he faded into the crowd without looking back.
Zara leaned across the bar.
“Jax, you didn’t do anything to that kid, did you? He’s the son of very wealthy people upstairs with Ro. She will not be pleased if he starts barking like a dog or puking all over her clients.”
“He was trying to copulate with me right here against the bar, for Christ’s sake.”
“That’s allowed,” Zara winked, turning to fill more glasses with flourishes and smiles for the customers.
“Not with me, it’s not. I’m saving myself for someone with a brain.” Jax took a deep breath, tried to focus, to keep her voice calm. “Zara, have you seen Lucas?”
Zara’s eyes narrowed, and she was suddenly attentive. “I have not. And you know he wouldn’t come back here.”
Jax could feel the panic rise in her chest, and she blinked back sudden tears. “He hasn’t been home in more than a week. And before that… I…,” Jax shook her head. “Something’s wrong.”
Zara filled a customer’s glass, barely sparing them a glance. “And you’ve looked…”
Jax nodded. “Everywhere.”
“Then go to the cameras, Jax. He hasn’t been here since the night he quit. And I swear to you Ro hasn’t heard from him.”
“You don’t think Ro would—”
“No. She would have told me.” Zara squeezed Jax’s hand, her delicate fingers like iron. “He would never disappear like that. Not from you, at least.”
“Zara—”
“The cameras will tell you.” Zara leaned in and met Jax’s eyes. “This is no place for you,” she said, “not tonight.” Something in her voice made Jax doubt everything she’d heard about Zara, and before she could stop herself she thought of the club’s hidden rooms. The suffering that happened there. The horrors that people told themselves were consensual, harmless entertainment in order to cling to their sanity.
In order to cling to their cowardice.
Zara’s grip tightened on Jax’s arm. “I shouldn’t have to tell you not to come here again.”
Jax nodded once and Zara released her, returning to her customers as Jax fought her way back through the crowd.
The cameras it is, then.
Chapter 2
The idea of tracking someone with surveillance cameras made her feel ill, and Jax sincerely hoped that when she found Lucas, he would want to be found.
What’s the alternative? Abandon the one and only person in the entire world who would give their life for yours?
“Hey!” Sweaty fingers gripped her arm as she went through the doors, and Jax twisted, sending drunk royalty staggering across the courtyard.
Vodka Boy caught himself inelegantly against a tree and smiled at her. “You’re not leaving so soon, are you?”
“Yep. See ya.”
Jax started to push past him, but the boy moved fast, catching her around the waist. “My father paid a lot of money for me to have a good time. And I want to have a good time with you.”
Jax looked for Ignacio, inexplicably absent from his post by the door. Then she thought of Ro, and what the woman wouldn’t do to satisfy a customer, and her stomach dropped. Nothing. There was nothing Ro wouldn’t do to satisfy a customer.
Oh well. I tried. But extreme circumstances call for extreme measures.
Reaching into a small pocket along the outside seam of her pants, Jax felt for the pill-shaped vial and removed its cap, careful not to touch the exposed spike. Then she giggled, pinching Vodka Boy’s cheek with one hand to distract him as she drove the tiny spike into his shoulder with the other. “Well. If it’s a good time you want…”
Confusion crossed his sculpted features as some small part of his alcohol-addled brain attempted to fire off a warning. But then he grinned, a life spent getting whatever he desired overriding reason.
Jax wriggled out of his grasp and ran into the trees, smiling over her shoulder. “Let’s play catch!”
Clapping his hands like a delighted child, Vodka Boy moved to chase her just as the first cramp wracked his intestines, stopping him cold.
“I… think I’m—” he croaked.
And then threw up all over the nearest tree.
“Yeah. Well,” Jax said, moving toward the door.
She found Ignacio outside in the alley, leaning against the wall.
“Jax.” He stood straight, shaking his head. “Okay? I warned Ro it wasn’t smart not to reign in her clients with you in there.”
“No worries.” She waved a hand like a magician. “Nothing a little campylobacter cocktail can’t fix. You might want to get in there before the diarrhea starts, though.”
Ignacio rushed for the door. “Jax, I swear to God, if you—”
“Foreign rich kids really should watch what they eat, Ig. Especially when they’re slumming it in seedy joints like this one.” She waved. “Tell Ro hi.”
Ignacio’s curses abruptly cut off as the soundproof door closed, and Jax almost smiled as she jogged back toward the bright lights of the Strip, before her mind slammed back to Lucas like a slap in the face.
He would never leave her alone willingly. Jax felt a stab of guilt for not going to the cameras sooner, for the excuses, the selfish rationalization that she now recognized was nothing more than an attempt to avoid this feeling of roaches crawling along her skin at the thought of spying on someone without their knowledge.
She took a taxi to the The Venetian, and was still trying to convince herself she was doing the right thing as she trekked through the parking lot. What’s the worst that could happen?
Lucas gets angry she found him secretly shacked up with an elderly millionaire, then refuses to speak to her for a few hours? No problem.
Keeping her head down, Jax followed groomed hedges that looked fake along perfectly manicured flowerbeds to another unmarked door, this one behind a cement pillar.
She didn’t bother knocking. The cameras would see her.
A gravelly voice from a hidden speaker made her jump. “Jax.”
“Esteban Santiago. Sir.”
“Is this the part where you call in that favor?”
“It is.” Jax looked at the nearest camera and the black orb stared back indifferently.
The door clicked open and Jax stepped directly into an elevator, feeling it take her down below the ground. When the door opened, Esteban Santiago, ex Delta Force, was waiting for her in all his tattooed, greying glory.
Three technicians turned to look at Jax, their expressions incredulous as they took in her size, her spiky hair, and her worn-out denim jacket covered in buttons and pins. She knew she looked even younger than she really was. Jax fought the urge to give them the finger as Esteban motioned them out with one jerk of his chin.
“All right, let’s get this over with,” he growled as soon as they were alone. “Lucas?”
Jax nodded, settling into one of the chairs in front of a wall covered in monitors.
“Last known location?” His hands moved across various keyboards.
“The Bellagio.” Jax felt her stomach twist. “Six days ago. So, August twenty-fifth.”
Esteban turned his attention to the screens, and for the next twenty minutes they watched the images flash by at triple speed. At one point Jax stood to get a muffin and coffee from a machine in the corner of the room. It wasn’t exactly a meal, but at least the hot liquid kept her awake.
Finally Esteban straightened, waving a hand at the screen. “There he is leaving the Bellagio and going…” He made a clicking noise with his teeth as he searched, tapping a foot as the minutes stretched. “There! Eating at the Wynn on the twenty-ninth.” He glanced at her. “He didn’t answer his phone all week?”
