Remy, like me, preferred dark cotton t-shirts, most unembellished, and sturdy denim. He’d picked a navy blue shirt where I’d picked a dark burgundy, so at least we wouldn’t be walking the hotel unintentional twins.
He held out his phone. “Looks like we have thirteen advertised apartment complexes near the casino where we met our scat-throwing friend.”
I glanced at the map and nodded.
Remy tucked the phone into his pocket as we walked toward the elevator. “My initial guess was that the building in question would not advertise for mundane renters, but then I thought what better cover? Half the units to mundanes, and half to magicals.”
“Or we’re looking for a smaller building with no mundanes,” I said.
He shrugged. “Either way, we have a place to start.”
The first building, about two blocks north of the troll’s casino, turned out to be a dump that looked more like a rundown hotel than an apartment building. Paint peeled off the concrete pillars. The metal supports on the balconies rusted to the point we could see the damage from the road. No magic lifted off the structure. No incidental ribbons. No shadows indicating a magical lived there.
The second building was a gated high-rise behind palm trees and was too far from the street for me to get a good visual reading. Remy made a note and we moved on.
The next two buildings faced each other across a pool. People milled about, and cars filled the lot off to one side, but I didn’t get any sense of any magicals.
Same with our fourth, fifth, and sixth complexes.
We pulled up outside stop seven. The desert heat pooled in the early evening sun, inside the soon-to-pop bubble of the day’s retained sunshine. Glare off the pavement was at its worst, with the lowering angle of the sun. The world was about to transition to night, and it made the air tap its foot and fidget its fingers.
Remy’s stomach rumbled. I’d been fighting hunger pangs for about an hour. This would be our last stop for the day, then back to the hotel for dinner, some spying on the elven security detail, and a prowl through the casinos in hopes of catching a local magical working a table or two.
I peered at the prefab tan stucco entrance. A parking lot spanned one entire side of the building, and a fenced pool filled the other.
“Nothing,” I said.
Remy sighed.
“Perhaps the concealment enchantments are stronger than we thought.”
He rubbed at his hair. “Hmmm…”
He wasn’t looking at me. He stared at the tall concrete wall across the road.
I didn’t see any magic lifting off whatever stood behind the fence. “What?”
“Foxes,” he muttered.
All I saw was concrete. “Here?”
Remy hopped out of our rental SUV, looked both ways, and walked toward the wall.
From across the street, its sand-colored paint made it fade into the background even though the wall was a fifteen-foot-tall cinderblock monstrosity that looked more like the outer fence of a prison than any housing development noise barrier.
I followed Remy to the other side of the street.
Up close, the rustling of the tops of palm trees on the other side muted the prison effect. Laughter drifted up as well, as did splashing, and the scent of chlorinated water.
“There’s a pool on the other side,” I said.
His nose twitched and he looked up and down the block.
No gates were visible.
Remy nodded toward the west. “You go that way.”
“We are not splitting up. Not if you smell kitsune.” Those two brats were probably hoping for some divide-and-conquer action.
“Fine,” Remy said. “We could jump the wall.” He pointed at the top of the concrete fence.
“And deal with the Las Vegas police?” Nothing caused 911 calls faster than a werewolf scaling a wall in full daylight.
We walked east, hoping to find an entrance. Remy trotted along the sidewalk, with me following.
The visible treetops spread out, then vanished completely as we moved along the wall. The tiled roof of a building became visible once we rounded the first corner, but no gates, and no driveway, though we both heard cars inside.
Around the third corner, the fence jogged inward around a telephone pole and an array of electrical junctions, but still no gate.
When our SUV came back into sight, Remy stopped. He slapped the wall and pointed at the flat, unadorned top of the wall. “Seems we found what we were looking for.”
This had to be the apartment complex Mark Ellis mentioned, but we couldn’t get in. We couldn’t introduce ourselves and we couldn’t ask questions.
Clearly, we were not welcome.
Remy slapped the wall again. He shook his head. “Sorry to offend!” he called. “Let’s get dinner.” He pointed at the SUV.
I glanced at our ride. When I glanced back, the wall was gone.
Not the full wall. We were standing in the dead center of a wide driveway flanked on either side by open, tall, mesh-filled, utilitarian steel gates. When closed, they’d stop not just a car, but also foot traffic.
A yellow and black electronic pass scanner stood so close to my elbow I was surprised I hadn’t bumped into it.
And in the middle of the driveway, between the open gates, sat a dark-haired woman with braids. She wore jeans and a t-shirt much like ours, and big, black, military-style boots. Black-lensed sunglasses covered her eyes, and a huge straw hat with ragged edges, her head.
She crossed her legs and tapped her beer against her blue camp chair.
“Raven,” I said.
Two hundred years in North America and this was the first time a native spirit deemed me worthy of a conversation—and my gut said this conversation was not about to go well.
“I figured when that troll said ‘nearby’ you two would show up sooner or later.” She sipped at her beer. “Then those two Japanese foxes had to get you all riled up.” She pointed the beer at Remy.
His eyes widened. I nodded as if to say She’s exactly who you think she is.
He quickly regained his composure and bowed. “It’s an honor, Madame Raven.”
She laughed. “Yes, it is.” She sipped at her beer again. “They’re not here, by the way. You’re sniffing other spirits who would rather be left alone.”
He lifted his hands as if to signal defeat. “I meant no harm.”
Raven set her beer on the ground. “Now that, right there, is a lie.”
Remy dropped his hands, but thankfully did not argue.
“Those two kitsune get a kick out of messing with you,” she said, “and the wolf in you wants to shake them until they stop that obnoxious, chittering screech they make.” She pushed her sunglasses up her nose.
This conversation would spiral into something Remy would regret if I didn’t derail it right now. “We’re not here about the kitsune,” I said.
Raven stood. She dusted her knees and stretched her back.
Her wings erupted behind her in full, magical detail—huge, black, and feathered. They spanned the entire width of the driveway from gate to gate, shimmering in the low evening sun. Rainbows danced through their feathers. Fluttering and flapping drowned out all other noises, and I swear, somewhere in the distance, I heard cawing.
Then her wings, in all their magical glory, vanished.
“I wish to pose a question to you two gentlemen.” She walked toward us. “How do you believe your target remembers her time in your glorious northern land?”
I looked at Remy. He looked at me. She knew we were looking for Portia Elizabeth.
But of course she knew. All Raven myths carried acknowledgement of a corvid’s intelligence and cleverness. She probably had a better understanding of the big picture than anyone in Las Vegas, Remy and I included.
He shook his head. “I wish I knew,” he said. “I wish I remembered.”
He didn’t know. That much was obvious from our conversation on the plane. I suspected that not knowing felt
, to him, the same way the not knowing about the woman on my phone felt to me—like a hole in my map of the world.
Raven walked right up to Remy. She stopped inches away, and pulled off her sunglasses. “You’ve looked for her before, haven’t you?” She tipped her head to the side. “Every time you go out to fetch a stray, you look.” She sniffed at his face. “But this is your first sanctioned search. Neither your brother nor your king wanted to tempt a chaotic fate once again, so you’ve been sneaky.”
This chasing after Arne’s ace in the hole was, for Remy, more than helping his town and pack. It was a search for understanding.
Raven stepped back. “Three hundred years of not reaching out—not asking if there was anything her ex-community could do to help her—but the moment the Elf King of Alfheim needs her help it’s all ‘let’s chase down the female fertility spirit.’”
“It’s not that simple,” Remy whispered.
“Oh yes it is, young man.” Raven tapped him between the eyes. “It very much is that simple.”
“She’s dangerous,” Remy said.
“And you’re not?” She tapped his chest. “You have no idea the fate you tempt here, boy.”
Remy’s lip curled.
“We are done speaking of your target.” Raven snapped his mouth with her fingers before he could get out a word. “You are done searching. Do you understand? No stalking, wolf boy.”
He sniffed and pulled his head back and his lips off her fingers, but thankfully kept his mouth shut.
She walked over to me and looked up at my face. “My, aren’t you a big one. Jotunn big.” She tapped my chest. “You are a fascination, Mr. Victorsson. A new creature. One shiny and interesting.” She winked.
There had to be something I could offer. Some sort of exchange, so that we could get the information we needed. “I am at your service, Madame Raven,” I said.
I don’t know why I said it. I don’t know why a call to help struck me here, in the middle of a parted concealment enchantment in Las Vegas. I don’t know why the sins of the past and the fears of the future made me want to reach out, but they did.
If I was going to figure this out, I needed as much help as everyone around me.
“Never offer services to a trickster,” Remy hissed.
Raven whipped around. “Too late.”
She placed her hand on my chest. “Interesting. You have walked in The Land of the Dead.”
“I have,” I said. My brother pulled me into The Land of the Dead when he became fixated on destroying my life.
She touched my cheek. “And you have withstood a… piercing dark magic, yes?”
Arne told me I carried no residual magic from the pike my brother—Dracula, after the vampire lord took control of Brother’s body—rammed through my chest, yet the spirit of Raven sensed some sort of lasting effect. “I am clean of that magic,” I said.
“You are, son of Victor.” She lifted her hand off my cheek and rubbed her fingers together as if feeling the dust of my soul. “You and I will talk again.”
Raven vanished. Her beer and chair vanished. The gates creaked and groaned, and closed us out of the complex.
Remy rubbed his face. He turned in a circle and looked up at the sky. Then he stomped back to the SUV.
Why did my gut tell me that I was about to regret offering my services to a trickster spirit? Part of me wondered if Portia Elizabeth did the same thing three centuries ago.
I touched the metal of the gate and yanked back my hand from the heat. The air around it swirled like a watery mirage, and pushed me away.
I stepped back just as the wall reformed. I ran my finger over the scratchy, sandy “cinderblock.” We wouldn’t be talking to anyone inside, at least not tonight.
Remy called from across the street.
“I’m coming,” I said, and touched the wall again. The enchantment was as solid as the concrete it imitated. There was nothing I could do against magic like that.
I walked back to the SUV. “Now what?” I asked.
Remy started the vehicle. “We get food and we plan.”
Chapter 13
Remy chewed his burger. Behind us, out on the floor, lights popped and bells dinged. We sat in a raised restaurant area just off the casino, in a spot with a good view of the main walkway corridor. Our table butted up against the polished brass railing separating the players from the eaters.
A guest out in the casino, behind the slots and the games, whooped and a crowd cheered.
“Somebody won,” I said.
Remy sipped his beer and ignored the gaming joy of the mundanes. “See any magic?”
He’d been asking the same questions every ten minutes since we came down for dinner.
I shook my head. Nothing beyond a few people with higher-than-average natural magic, all of whom were likely touched and not magical in any way. Remy frowned and took another bite of his burger.
A lovely young woman in a fluttery and expensive dress walked up to our table. She leaned against the brass rail and smiled at Remy. “Hello,” she said. “You two look lonely.”
Remy grinned back. “We’re here on our honeymoon. Isn’t that right, muffin?”
I smiled sweetly.
She shrugged. “Well, if you two change your minds, I’ll be around.” She walked away in search of another mark.
I chewed my final bite of burger. “Didn’t you have a girlfriend with a cat named Muffin?”
“Mr. Cuddle-muffin Fluffy-butt.” Remy wiped his fingers. “At least she didn’t have a fox.”
He was still fixating on the kitsune. Wolves, when they got a target in their sights, didn’t give up until the target was brought down, or in the case of werewolves, until someone dragged their sorry backsides back to Alfheim.
And here in Las Vegas, Remy had multiple targets in his sights—the kitsune, Raven, and Portia Elizabeth—and he rotated between them depending on how indignant he felt at any given moment.
Such was the way of the wolves. I would not interfere. The wolves’ way got the job done the vast majority of the time, so there had to be some value to indignant rotation as a hunting strategy.
Except now. Raven made it clear—as clear as a trickster spirit is going to make anything—that we were on our own from this point forward. Any asking for help from Portia Elizabeth was going to fall on deaf ears.
I scanned the casino again. “We need to concentrate on how we’re going to present ourselves at the Conclave Feast,” I said.
“Why?” Remy watched a high roller swagger by flashing gold chains and rings.
“Because Raven put an end to our investigation.” Fixations usually didn’t block the obvious for most of the wolves, but Remy seemed particularly annoyed.
Remy pushed a pickle to the side before munching on a fry. “Raven is a trickster.” He sipped his soda. “And fascinated with you.”
I sat back. “She’s Raven. I’m shiny and interesting.” I was beginning to think magicals, as a whole, had fixation issues. The elves were pretty much live and let live, though.
Remy laughed. “Watch out. She’ll steal your car keys.”
“Not this Raven,” I said.
He watched another couple walk by. “I don’t think she’s a regular Raven spirit,” he said.
So Remy’s instincts mirrored my own. “She wants us to leave Portia Elizabeth alone.” Why did he feel he needed to argue with a spirit, especially a major spirit? Arguing with a spirit wasn’t all that different from arguing with an elf—you weren’t going to win. “Maybe we should listen.”
But Remy was an Alpha werewolf, and arguing with a fixated Alpha wolf wouldn’t get me anywhere, either.
I was beginning to wonder if sending Remy had been Arne’s wisest move. I’d have no idea what I was doing, though, if I’d come alone.
“Want me to call Arne?” I asked. We’d already made Alfheim aware of the Niklas der Nord situation. Not the Raven interaction, though. “Maybe Axlam can fly down. She’s good with diplomacy. Perh
aps Raven would take better to a female werewolf.” Portia Elizabeth, if she did come forward, might do better with Remy’s sister-in-law.
He stared out into the casino. “Why have Raven step in? Why not tell me herself?” he muttered.
This was not a path I wished to take—this ruminating about his worthiness to speak to the fertility spirit who once loved him. Not now. Not in a room full of swirling roulette tables and drunks playing blackjack. Not ever, to be honest. Remy’s issues were his own.
An old, fat man with thinning, slicked-back hair groped a young woman as they walked by.
“Now that, right there,” Remy pointed, “is messed up and boring.” He pushed back his chair. “I’m going back to the apartments. Maybe I’ll find someone who knows something. Someone who isn’t a trickster.”
“What are you going to do?” The gate into the complex was hidden. “Don’t jump the wall, Remy.” Either he’d need to pick up gear or he’d have to shift to his wolf form. “The last thing we need is for you to go fully four-legged and howling while der Nord is out there looking for any excuse to point out the great incivility of Alfheim.”
“I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation,” Remy said.
Of course I understood. “Arne wants a powerful dark magical to walk into the Feast, wink at the elves, and declare diplomatic parity with Alfheim and her Court.”
Remy sighed. “Yes, yes, Arne Odinsson, the tamer of the non-eleven and bringer of great economic prosperity.” He shook his head. “That’s not the whole picture.”
I frowned. “Without a show of strength from the Alfheim Court, we might just end up with a new, unfriendly king.”
Remy tapped the table. “Do you know why Tyr Bragisson is the Elf Emperor and not the Norwegian king? Why it is that the eight Scandinavian enclaves throughout Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark are under one ruler? Why the smaller enclaves in England and France don’t have their own kings? Because they should.”
I knew some of the story. “There was an elf who called himself Lokisson.” And Loki’s purpose was to spread chaos.
Remy nodded. “This was in the early sixteen hundreds, right about the time Gerard and I caught a ship to the New World.” He sighed. “We were still pretty wild back then, though we held ourselves well enough to travel with mundanes and not kill the entire crew.”
Elf Raised (Northern Creatures Book 3) Page 9
