I was struck to realize that Vegas moguls were busy inviting live-in neighbors, like Shez here and, at the Inferno, Ric, to protect their empires and . . . perhaps themselves.
Hughes was sitting atop a powder keg. The imperious ancient vampire empire under the Karnak had to scrounge for prey in the surrounding desert now that Ric and I had freed their food supply, an entire class of nonvampire Egyptians bred and kept like stock for that sole purpose.
Only the fear of Shezmou reaping their immortal heads and sending their souls on to Orsiris and a judgment that would cast them into eternal darkness kept them going along with Howard and his artificial bloodwine campaign.
So . . . why did the great and powerful Christophe need Ric? Sure, mi amor had soaked up some of my silver medium powers, but I still had my modest original silver mojo, plus the familiar transformed from a lock of Snow’s hair.
“I’m tired now,” Hughes muttered. “You may leave.”
Apparently girls weren’t considered ace supernatural guardians.
I should be so hurt that Cesar Cicereau hadn’t invited me to be his in-house guard when I’d saved his hairy ass twice.
Speaking of hairy asses, as I’d recently had the unhappy occasion to glimpse, Bez was waiting outside the suite door to see me and Quicksilver out when we took our leave.
Chapter Twenty-eight
G EE, IRMA ANNOUNCED, when we weren’t looking, someone turned the lights out.
I took a deep breath.
After a fun ride down on the Hughes-built automated chair, Bez left Quick and me to navigate through the Karnak crowds and the oppressive exterior pillars outside. As the casino chill faded in the warm dry air, we gazed on the overlit dark of the Strip, now the world’s biggest and most expensive velvet painting.
I actually liked the effect of night scenes etched with luminous chalk on a black velvet background. It wasn’t the Hope Diamond on red-carpet jewelers’ velvet, but it was . . . Vegas.
Meanwhile, Irma waxed guilty for a change.
I sort of feel like I should have stayed to keep the old guy company.
“He’s power-mad Howard Hughes, world’s most unattractive vampire,” I pointed out.
All he needs is a good listener.
“Fine. Do whatever you do to take over an innocent mind. Howard just reminded me what I do best.”
Attract lonely old moguls?
“Research, baby! My next project is to figure out the identity of the woman who helped Hughes die and live again. If it wasn’t Vida, and I doubt that, thank God . . . who was it? That might explain a lot about pre– and post–Millennium Revelation Vegas, maybe even the Immortality Mob.”
But . . . it was late and tomorrow was another day.
AND THEN QUICKSILVER and I returned to the Enchanted Cottage to find Ric leaning, arms folded against his chest, against his ’Vette in the driveway.
Talk about a velvet painting. Add it up. Bronze car gleaming under the soft security lights. Bronze-skinned guy with the day’s tie in his jacket pocket and his cream-colored shirt opened three buttons down. The glints in his hair and his eyes both simmered like hot black coffee.
Quicksilver took one look, bolted over the wall, and headed for Sunset Park. He knew my weaknesses.
Going off leash was illegal and I should chase him down and get him home.
“Got all night?” Ric asked.
On the other hand, if Quicksilver couldn’t take care of himself, who or what could?
IT ONLY TOOK a quarter of the night for Ric to soften me into an utterly agreeable state and whisper the bad news in my ear.
“I’m going to hate to leave town tomorrow, chica.”
I paused in doing passionate things to his navel.
“Tomorrow? Leave?”
“An out-of-town consultation gig. It’s secret government work. I can’t tell you anything.”
“Anything? Now that’s a challenge.” I moved my mouth lower. “Where?”
“I’m not supposed to say . . . Delilah! It’s just Texas.”
“Texas? What’s in Texas?”
Lower.
“El Paso. Zombies. Smuggling.”
I had him down to one-word answers, then paused to give him time to catch his breath so I could learn more. El Paso sounded innocent enough. Until I realized what was opposite El Paso.
“Juarez!”
“Delilah! Ouch.”
I put us on serious Pause button. “You’re going back to the worst killing field on the planet and you weren’t going to tell me!”
“Just for a couple of days.”
“And nights. If you want any more of them with me, you’d better take me along.”
“I can’t. It’s not just me involved.”
“So that’s why Tallgrass showed up. You guys put on the foot-shuffling male-bonding act so I’d only be able to kick up a ruckus about being left behind when it was too late.
“I don’t even have a passport,” I said bitterly.
“Delilah, you’re an ace investigator and have more cojones than most werewolves, but the officials we work for wouldn’t understand what you could do for them. This is an all-human, unofficial covert paramilitary, not paranormal, force and operation.”
“All male,” I grumbled.
“There will be some female troops, but you are not an enlisted woman.”
The finality in his voice was something I’d never heard before. This was FBI Ric speaking, laying down the law in an area where men were mostly men, discipline was strict, and rules were not broken.
I sighed. There was no stopping him, I could tell. Might as well make the most of these last hours before he left.
I wriggled farther down his body, tossing my hair from side to side as it trailed down too.
“That’s a good girl,” Ric murmured after a deep intake of breath. “That’s a very, very good girl.”
He had no idea just how good I could be when I was bad.
Chapter Twenty-nine
WHEN THE LOVE of your life insists he’s going off with his one-time FBI mentor to find his demonic worst enemy in “the murder capital of the world,” a city that boasted almost five thousand murders last year alone, and you will damn well stay home safe in Las Vegas, what’s a modern woman to do?
Argue herself pink, purple, and puce to no avail, and then say, “Yes, dear.”
So he soaks up the supersteamy farewell sex while you soak up his mushy vows of love and a swift, safe return.
Then you check his cell phone and email in the middle of the night when he’s sleeping sounder than an exhausted sultan after you gave him his third orgasm.
And then . . . you wait a few hours after he heads for the airport, take your hundred-and-fifty-pound wolf-mix dog and ex-reporter savvy, and follow the cocky son-of-a-gun right on down to Mexico and Door Number Three, the murder capital of the world, Ciudad Juarez.
Just for the record, and I know where to find hard facts, Las Vegas averages fewer homicides in one year than the City of Juarez averages in one month.
I MADE THE twelve-hour drive on Highway 93 and I-10 to El Paso in ten hours flat.
No way was Quicksilver shipping in the belly of an airplane. Besides, he was great company on a road trip and loved riding shotgun.
And no way was I leaving my Cadillac Eldorado convertible parked at the border, so I found Dolly a good long-term garage in El Paso for the duration and stored Quick’s car-riding sunglasses in the glove compartment.
Before moving on, I tipped the garage attendant royally. I trusted Vegas’s valet parking demons more than the usual humans, but Quicksilver had shown this guy the size of his shark-worthy fangs.
His friendly parting grin had turned the Anglo attendant a whiter shade of pale. He definitely got the message about what would happen if we came back to find Dolly violated in any way, including a joyride.
Twilight was stretching long shadows even longer as we walked the mile to the border. I hated splitting with Quick a couple blocks fro
m the international bridge. I’d have to walk over the Rio Grande River alone.
“Sorry, boy,” I knelt to tell him. “It’s swim or confiscation.”
For the first time ever, I unbuckled the black leather collar he’d been wearing when I’d adopted him at a shelter event in Vegas’s Sunset Park so soon after arriving in town that I didn’t even have an apartment yet. The volunteers had me when they said such a large dog was so tough to place he was slated for so-called euthanasia right after the event.
Quick was a major reason I’d accepted Nightwine’s offer to live in the Enchanted Cottage on his estate. I couldn’t rent anywhere else with a big dog in the package.
As I slipped off Quicksilver’s collar, he growled, the first time ever at me. My fingertips polished the silver moons that circled the wide black leather.
“I don’t want that death-ridden river tainting your lucky charms, amigo. Bad enough you have to swim it.” Given the strife of the border wars, I wouldn’t be surprised to find the Rio Grande a bloody boiling expanse sweeping thousands of visible corpses along.
Quicksilver arfed eager doggie agreement to my scheme, narrowing his eyes at the stream of cars and pedestrians crossing the bridge. Being mostly gray with touches of beige, I knew he’d blend into the water in the fading light. I hoped my copped ID would also pass better muster at twilight.
“Ric was right. We’re both taking a big risk being here,” I whispered into Quick’s wolfish perked ear. “You don’t have to go with me. Ric and you came into my life on the same day, and I couldn’t forgive myself if harm came to either of you through me.”
Yeah, dogs don’t talk, but they do sense more than we can know.
Quicksilver was not a smoochy dog, but he answered by head-butting my shoulder and taking off at a trot, losing himself in the throng of people, heading right for the banks of Rio Grande . . . Rio Bravo to the natives on the other side.
Too late for me to get cold tootsies. Besides, that was hard to do in the cut-down ankle cowboy boots I’d bought to look touristy-fashionable and harmless. They’d still protect my legs from the brush I expected to encounter. I’d stuffed denim jeggings into them, tough enough for a tromp in the desert but not as hot as heavy-duty jeans in this heat-and-dust soaked climate.
In ten minutes I was filing forward in a line of tourists wearing shorts and sandals, visiting Juarez no matter the death toll and time of day, drawn by cheap prices on Mexican tooled leather, sterling silver, and dentistry.
My silver familiar had tarted itself up as a cuff bracelet inset with lurid blue glass ‘stones’ instead of turquoise . . . nothing anyone would want to steal, but useful proof of presumed previous jaunts to Juarez.
I slung my backpack over one shoulder like a hobo bag and clutched the laminated key to the city in my right hand. My tan-shy white skin wore an air-brushed patina of bronze. Gray contact lenses hid my vivid blue eyes.
With my thick black hair, I looked Latina on first glance, which was important not only for general undercover purposes, but because I held the passport of a Poxx TV News researcher named Ashley Martinez.
An American crew fresh from Juarez had been purging their minds of the horrors they’d seen there in a dim El Paso hotel bar. An ex-reporter like me could blend in and ask questions.
“Plan on paying mordida—bribes,” said a woman who was a smidge heavier, older, and less blonde than most female oncamera TV reporters. “Tell me you’re not a stringer or freelancer?”
“My crew’s already in Juarez, but this is my first trip down. Delilah Street, WTCH-TV, Wichita.” We shook hands.
“I’m Louise Dietz,” she said. “So Kansas is sending crews to Juarez?”
“The drug lords’ smuggling routes cut through the heartland, and so do the addiction and gun-running problems these days.”
“That’s for sure.” She sipped a spiked lemonade. “That’s another thing: buy bottled water or canned pop and drink only that.”
I pulled an Aqua Fina bottle out of the backpack at my feet, which was loaded with high-protein energy bars and foil-packaged dog food.
“You look prepared,” she admitted. “I’ve been doing news for more years than you’ve known how to write your pretty first name, Delilah. I anchored in Santa Fe in my glory days, but I like hard news reporting better. I live to expose the bad guys. You’re not driving in?”
“No. Walking the bridge.”
“So you’re meeting the crew muscle right on the other side?”
“That’s the plan.” News crews on dangerous turf hire locals as guides-cum-bodyguards. Quicksilver didn’t speak Spanish but he sure spoke intimidation, and he was waiting outside the bar.
“You’re lucky your dark hair passes around here. Still, I wouldn’t send a woman crew member on foot alone across the street in Juarez,” Louise said. “If the pollution from the burning tires and junker cars don’t get you, the crazy traffic or the kidnappers will. You’ve got nerve.”
“I’ve got a mission. Like you say, there’s a lot of pollution in Juarez that needs to be exposed. And stopped.”
She was silent for a moment, measuring me. “Most of it’s human. Or are you one of these New Agers that think a bit of the unhuman is messing in our world since the Millennium?”
“I think bad is bad, whatever its origin.”
“Look for it at every step, in every face, and you’ll do all right down there, kid.”
Meanwhile, I’d been watching a young Latina woman about my size who’d been flirting with the beach-boy handsome videographer.
“Thanks for the tips,” I told Louise in good-bye, in pursuit of my oblivious prey. She should have been watching every step, every face. Especially mine.
I followed her into the ladies’ room.
Señorita Martinez had closed her eyes to reapply Urban Decay Zero eyeliner to her lids, a faux decadent beauty product line so appropriate to this time and place. I was heading into the Zero Zone all right. Zero safety. Zero protection. Zero humanity. First I had to get in, so I slipped the tourist card out of the passport in her unzipped purse while her eyes were closed, getting pretty. Back out in the still-sizzling late afternoon sun, I collected my furry escort.
Tourists from the United States weren’t subjected to as much scrutiny as those wanting in. Still, me and Ashley’s tourist card, which allowed a stay of more than seventy-two hours, merited a hard look. My small backpack got a total feeling up. Martinez was a surname that could cut both ways.
“Researcher?” the border guard asked.
“I hope to become a reporter, meanwhile I tote and type up things on my laptop for the glamour guys and gals on camera.”
My notebook computer was getting a thorough check too.
“A woman crossing over alone with night coming on . . . that’s beyond dangerous.”
“I’m meeting the crew right on the other side.”
“Anybody who goes into Juarez these days is crazy.”
“I get you. Hopefully they’ll give me a ton of stories to file and I’ll be back over tomorrow.”
“Trust no one.”
“Thank you, sir.” I accepted custody of my phony tourist card and backpack. “I don’t.”
Crossing the bridge, I was charmed to see Mexican children of all ages wading in the Rio Grande shallows as the shadows lengthened. I paused to enjoy the evidence of kids playing in these brutal times in this godforsaken city.
I noticed a small boy holding a squirming puppy maybe six weeks old. How cute, how sweet . . . I’d never seen Quicksilver at that age. A lump thickened in my throat to see innocence in a war zone.
The boy hefted the pup and threw it far out into the river.
No!
I breathed again to see the tiny head surface. The pup swam hard back toward the shore and the boy . . . when it got there, it was again picked up and thrown into the current. Again blind instinct homed it right back to its tormenter.
I curled my fingers in the cyclone fence towering over the walk
way. “No!” I cried.
The child looked up, grinned, bent to pluck the tiny pup from the water, and threw it in farther. Even at such a young age, the puppy regarded a human as its pack leader and would return, no matter what.
Already the cultural divide was staring me in the face. Small boys could be cruel, but moreso in a land where families were gunned down and men dumped in acid and beheaded and young women tortured and raped and buried in the surrounding desert. This was where Ric had been sold into slavery by his own kin at the age of four, long before the cartels had become so unbelievably brutal and bold.
“No,” I screamed again, pulling American bills out of my backpack and rolling them up to stuff them between the twisted wires, hoping they’d drift down to the kid, bribe him to be good. He knew he was upsetting the privileged americana. The puppy would soon tire, sink, and be swept away.
In the middle of the broad river another puppy paddled along, it too heading for the tormenting boy. Was an entire litter being slowly drowned? With human life so cheap, I was witnessing the ghastly trickle-down effect.
The next dog-paddler finally reached shallower water. The forehead I’d spotted rose slowly out of the water. A huge canine body came lumbering onto the shore, the water-logged pup a dripping, scruff-of the-neck burden in the big jaw’s delicate grip.
Quicksilver!
Quick dropped the exhausted puppy on the sandy shore, then stood to his full height and shook the water from his fur until his wolfish hackles stood high and almost dry. His jaws grabbed the boy by the scruff of his T-shirt, and, with one toss, hurled him into the river deep enough to sink and rise and tread water, then swim furiously for a distant shoreline.
A preteen girl who’d been watching the entire drama got the courage to wade ashore and cradle the rescued puppy.
Quick gave one wolfish howl that made every playing child pause in saucer-eyed awe. He spun and streaked away, the sunset haloing his fur with an eerie rose-silver light. I was sure the kids had a new legend to report to their families: seeing the guardian spirit of the river who tolerated no rough play with helpless animals.
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