by Jackie May
“First of all, nobody has opined anything for at least a hundred years, and second, Director West didn’t have all the facts, did she?” And third, if you love Director West so much, why don’t you marry her?
“And which facts are those?”
“No, no, no. We don’t say another word without releasing Detective Brenner.”
Brenner has reached his limit. “What’s going on? I thought we weren’t really talking about me?”
“Yeah, in a way,” I assure him.
“Then why are you using my name? Why did he just call me a human?”
“I know, just a little longer, I promise. This will all make sense.” To Stadther, I toss my hands in the air. “Would you just release him already?”
“He believed he had incriminating evidence against us, which would have involved human police. I had no choice. I acted in the best interest of us all.”
“Maybe you did, sure, but he couldn’t have known anything too bad, or you’d have killed him.”
Brenner tenses. “Killed me!”
“Your deduction is correct,” Stadther admits.
“Okay, so?”
“I will release him.”
“Great.”
“At the request of the Director.”
My hands clench into fists. “But I’m from the Agency.”
“So you claimed last night. Director West, however, knew nothing about you—”
“Because,” I interrupt (and rudely, by the look on Stadther’s face), “last night I was just trying to throw you off, but then Nick Gorgeous, like, an hour ago—”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay, well, and I guess the FBI means nothing to you, either?”
“The FBI is always welcome here.”
With exasperation, I turn to Hillerman. A little help? She adjusts her glasses and blinks, as though she’s only just now realizing our conversation is happening. She says, “Now?”
I have no idea what she’s talking about, but it’s got to be better than what I have, which is a whole lot more of nothing, so I say, “Now would be good, yes.”
She taps her phone once before tucking it away in her sweatshirt pocket, then levels innocent, wide eyes at Henry Stadther. As he studies her with a sweeping look up and down her body, his casual demeanor sharpens to a razor focus. Uncrossing his leg, he sits up straight. “Who are you?”
The words have barely left his lips when the entire room plunges into darkness. Heavy silence falls as electronics and appliances power down. The darkness is total—even my night vision is baffled for a moment. I hear Stadther leap to his feet. His men exclaim with curses. Probably the same curses that are screaming through my brain right now because HO—LEE—SHIT Hillerman! Shutting down the entire casino! We needed leverage, not World War Henry.
“You’ve two seconds!” he snaps. “Turn it back—” He stops at the click and hum and the low red light of emergency power kicking in. Stadther’s face is a garish mask of wrath. His eyeteeth have descended. With a sharp intake of breath, Brenner steps back.
“Two minutes, more likely,” Hillerman says. I’m not looking at her, but by the coolness in her voice, I would not be surprised to see her picking lint from her sleeve. “And that’s if you’ve adhered to minimum power reserve standards. Most don’t.”
“Turn it back on,” Stadther commands.
“Detroit Police has been notified of the impending power failure. In the case of total power loss, the casino will be required to pay out all games in progress, favoring the patron. The house doesn’t always win, I guess.”
“Turn it back on!”
“Don’t ask me, I’m only here under authority of the Agency.” She turns expectantly to me.
“Release Detective Brenner,” is my condition for Stadther.
But he’s still hung up on Hillerman. “Who are you? What clan are you from?”
“Why don’t you compel me to say?” Hillerman taunts.
“Collusion!” Stadther hisses. “The FBI is recruiting underworlders!” His goons circle around to flank us. Fangs bared.
“I’m not underworld,” Hillerman says, “and you have thirty seconds.”
Stadther finally turns his attention over to me. “There’s no need to release this man. What he knows…I can tell you everything myself.”
Here we go. He’s starting to budge. I say, “And I’m sure we could believe everything you say, but the thing is, unless you’re going to take his place on our little team and roll around town in the back of my Crap-pile solving crimes for minimum wage, we really need for him to be in the know.”
“It’s strictly an underworld affair. I want full immunity from human law enforcement.”
I shrug. “Agreed.” Can I even do that? Oh well, I just did. And despite the derailed train wreck of this panicked moment, I still thrill with the intoxicating rush of finally wielding some semblance of authority, of mattering.
“If he takes this knowledge to the police,” Henry snarls. “If he inculpates my business in any way, I’ll hold the Agency responsible.”
“We get it, we get it!”
Stadther moves toward Brenner, who again steps back.
I take the detective by the elbow. “Trust me. This is what we came for.” But when Stadther reaches out for his head, I jerk Brenner to my side. “Wait!” Looking up into Brenner’s confused eyes, I want to speak, but my breath catches. Too late now. No going back. I can only say, “I’m sorry,” before Stadther cups the side of his head, pressing a thumb into Brenner’s temple. The two men lock eyes for an instant, and then Stadther backs away, whirling on Hillerman.
“Now!” he demands.
Hillerman pulls out her phone and begins texting.
I watch Brenner. His expression hasn’t changed. “Wait, Hillerman. It didn’t take.”
And then it hits him. A moment of horrible recognition. I can almost see the waves of memory flooding back in, and as each one crashes down, another part of his body begins to quiver—hands, head, chin. His eyes swim with emotion, bulge with overstimulation. He blinks rapidly, pupils darting here and there, and I know the nightmare is back in them. Those eyes will never again be at rest.
Brenner lunges at Stadther. In a flash, the two goons intercept, hauling him into the air.
“Don’t kill him!” I shout.
They don’t, and I applaud their restraint, because Brenner goes completely berserk, thrashing and kicking and flailing his fists at any face within reach, and every time the vamps slam him to the floor, Brenner gets right back up again. And again. And again.
Full power restores light with a loud hum that calms Stadther considerably but does nothing for Brenner. He hangs from a goon’s neck, twisting and punching. The other rams a fist into Brenner’s kidney. He gulps for air—once, twice—then unleashes more hurricane. They toss him over the back of the couch. They take turns pummeling his face. They slam him against the wall, rattling the windows. Though the vamps are not even breathing hard, their faces reflect a wary incredulity that says Truly this human has a special gift for taking a beating!
Enough. When the fight brings Brenner close to me, I extend the claws in my right hand—the only fox physicality available to me in human form—and sink their points into the back of his neck. “Down!”
He drops to his hands and knees, utterly spent, sucking wind. Face burning. Hair plastered to his forehead. He is racked by sudden sobs but abruptly cuts them off, and between deep breaths says, “Sorry…sorry…I apologize. It’s…not you…it’s not you…” Slowly, he hauls himself up. To the goons, he says, “Sorry.” To Stadther: “Sorry.” He turns to Hillerman. “Sorry.” To me, he says, “Sorry,” and then with a sudden realization, his shoulders dropping, he staggers forward and throws his arms around me in a tight hug. “Thank you,” he rasps.
I have no idea what to do. It’s not that I don’t do hugs. Hugs are fine. Love hugs. But he’s not letting go. He buries his face in my shoulder and squeezes me. “I don’t want to forg
et,” he says. “Don’t…just, anything but that. Anything but forgetting.”
“Okay. You’re okay now.” Do I pat him on the back, or what?
“Promise me. I can’t…”
“I promise.”
“Kill me next time.”
“Wait, is that the promise? No, how about we make sure there is no next time?”
He squeezes me tighter. “Promise you’ll kill me.”
With the last breath being forced from my lungs, I manage to wheeze, “I promise I’ll kill you! What are friends for?” My eyes find Hillerman. “Yeah, so he’s back.” To my surprise, she is blinking away tears as she pretends to look at something on her phone.
With a quick clearing of my throat, I turn Brenner to face the group. “Okay, Brenner, so now you know why we brought you here. Rosalind Rose, Dario Machlin, vampires at Monolith Casino, all connected somehow. Go.”
He goes, and immediately, despite shortness of breath. “Two weeks ago, Rosalind Rose is found at home with her throat ripped out and no blood in her body. This means nothing to the other detectives, other than what seems obvious, which is that she must have been killed elsewhere and dumped at home afterward. I’m the only one who can recognize the truth, because…because…” He begins to stutter. Eyes shutting tight involuntarily.
“Skip it,” I say.
He obeys. “So I came here, possibly a little drunk.”
“Definitely,” a goon says.
“And very,” the other concurs.
“I made a scene at the front desk, until I was finally allowed to speak with management.” He gestures toward the two goons. “I interrogated them.”
Stadther cuts in. “During which he was not so subtle in the inference that mythical creatures known as vampires are real. He knew Miss Rosalind was an escort. He asked about her regular clients, if any of them seemed odd. For instance, had they ever been seen awake during daylight hours; if any of them tended to avoid mirrors; if any of them had a fetish for biting the wrists or the neck; if they hated garlic!” Stadther is appalled.
“The garlic thing is a myth,” I explain to Brenner.
“Even though I do hate garlic,” a goon says, and the other shudders.
“The point is,” Stadther says as he resumes his seat in the highback chair. “After such reckless accusations, I would—”
“Not accusations, if it’s true,” I remind him.
“—I would have been completely justified in not allowing him to leave this casino alive.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because despite what you all may think of me, I’m not a thug. He was intoxicated. Perhaps he has a wild imagination, or saw one too many films.”
“So you’re feeling generous and don’t kill him. But you did have him trailed.”
“Yes.”
“Because he was right. Vampires did kill Rosalind Rose.”
Stadther lays his head back in a corner of the chair. Looking at me down the length of his arrow-straight nose, he says, “Yes.”
“More specifically, your vampires killed Rosalind Rose.”
“Yes.” He slides an incriminating glance at his goons. “She refused them service. She was rude about it. The timing was…unfortunate.”
“Meaning, your boys were hangry at the time.”
“Very bad timing.”
“You said that already.” I consider suggesting to the goons that next time they simply eat a Snickers, but they’re both glaring at me with arms folded. No sense lecturing. “So you let him go and trail him for two weeks before deciding to jump him. Why? What changed?” Okay, duh, the answer occurs to me instantly. “Because you found out he had pegged Dario Machlin.” I point to Brenner. “Dario Machlin, go.”
“He was Rosalind’s pimp,” Brenner states.
Okay. Didn’t see that one coming.
He continues. “There’s two other hookers—escorts—that worked with Rosalind. In fact, they all started here on the same day a month ago. I questioned them, but they wouldn’t talk, so I followed them.”
“Back to Dario’s.”
“Right.”
“Last night,” I remind him, “when we went into Dario’s place, there was a woman who ran out. Was she one of them?”
Surprisingly, it’s Stadther who answers. “No. Both of them were here working last night.”
“And you can confirm that Dario was their pimp?”
“He placed all three girls with us, as the detective said, a month ago.”
“All three at once,” I muse. “And Dario was a regular supplier for you?”
“Not at all. We’d never met before.”
“So he comes in out of the blue with three new pieces, and you trust that? These must have been some premium girls.” Another duh moment that strikes a second too late for me to save face. Dario the demon, three girls that sell instantly… “Oh. They were succubuses.”
“Succubi.”
“I know, but I hate that word.” As I’m saying this, the million-dollar question strikes me. So Dario, the get-me guy, suddenly waltzes in with three succubusesesees for sale all at once… “And he never came back again to place more girls?” Just so you know, that wasn’t the million-dollar question.
“No,” Stadther answers.
“Right, because he’s not really a pimp, is he? He’s a get-me guy, and what he needed to get was a large sum of clean money.” This is the million-dollar question: “How much did he get?”
“Forty. In cash.”
“Forty thousand dollars, cash. You’ll have to excuse me, but my pimp currency calculator is a little out of date. Is 40K a good price for three succubus girls?”
“It’s fair.”
“Riiiight.” I consider the goons. Their smug faces. Their defiant stance. Folded arms. “It’s so fair, in fact, that you’re not even upset when your goons trash one of them. I’d say forty thousand was a steal.”
“It was on the low end.”
“Because whoever needed this money didn’t care about profit. 40K is all they needed.” To Hillerman, I finish the thought: “The cash was for buying something.”
“We need to speak with the other two girls,” Hillerman says.
Stadther answers calmly, “They’re dead. Last night. They checked in at their usual time, sundown, and were immediately solicited to accompany a man to his room. An hour later, they were found. He had poisoned their drinks.”
My mind is racing, connecting dots. “That’s why you took out Brenner.”
Stadther’s eyebrows raise in assent. “Because whatever this is, it’s bigger than Rosalind Rose.”
“And you didn’t want to be implicated. You’ve already lost your 40K. Better to cut your losses, tie up loose ends, and walk away.”
“Anything else?”
“Oh, the sun’s coming up, isn’t it? Late night for you. Anything else? Yeah, maybe you want to tell me who the hell this guy is who killed your girls last night, because he’s probably the same guy who shot up Dario’s place. Obviously, this whole deal went bad.”
Stadther’s tone becomes forced. He’s losing patience. “We don’t know who he is.”
“How about a picture from your security cameras?”
“No clear picture of his face. We are able to trace his movements. He went to the room, he left the room. He wasn’t a regular. Witnesses say only that he was very good-looking.”
“Witnesses? Sounds like you’ve been working this case.”
“All night. For which purpose do you suppose we were convened when you came in?”
“A blood orgy, what else? So, the killer, he was very good-looking, or faerie good-looking?”
“A fey glamour? It’s possible.”
“It’s the conclusion you all came to, isn’t it?”
He concedes with a thin smile. “And now you know everything we know. Good-bye.”
Henry Stadther is not the type to ask twice, so I make for the exit. “Still room in the back of my car. We make a good team, d
on’t you think?”
“I’ll be speaking with the Director about you.”
Oh, a threat? How fun. I stop, letting my face drop. “Please don’t.”
“Be assured that I will.”
I widen my eyes to saucers. “Please don’t.”
The corners of his mouth turn up with satisfaction at the prospect of me begging. “I certainly will.”
“You wouldn’t!”
His smirk spreads into a malevolent grin.
Now I go over the top with my damsel-in-distress voice. “You wouldn’t tell on me! Why, I’d…I’d lose my badge, my gun, my health care benefits. C’mon, don’t be so…cold-blooded.” I make a gotcha face.
His smile drops into a scowl. Ding, ding, ding! His goons run at me, and with heart leaping into my throat, I whirl to flee and smash right into the doorframe, which I totally deserve, I know. Hillerman yanks me out and slams the door.
Back in my “office”—me behind the wheel, Hillerman with her foot up on the dash, Brenner’s frantic eyes in my rearview mirror. With the sun now up in a crystal clear sky, the city sparkles as I cruise aimlessly downtown.
“Vampires, I knew,” Brenner stammers, “but faeries and demons?”
For the hundredth time since leaving the casino, I want to ask him how he knows about vampires. I think Brenner won’t mind me asking, but I feel that Hillerman would be repulsed. So for the hundredth time, I leave it alone. “And sorcerers. And shifters.”
Gingerly, he touches several dark bruises on his face. The vampires really pulled their punches. If they hadn’t, every bone in his skull would be broken right now. “And you call it the underworld? You mentioned an Agency…”
“Federal Underworld Agency. We get to kick down doors and scream ‘Eff you!’”
“But, federal…so the government knows?”
“For a while now. Maybe twenty years or so. It’s still the Wild West, for the most part. Underworlders don’t handle regulation very well.”
“So, you guys will arrest the vampires?”
“Uh, no.”
“Who do we report this to? We know they killed Rosalind Rose—”
