Devil's Gate_A Novella of the Elder Races

by Thea Harrison

  They both sobered as they climbed out of the SUV. Duncan said, “The troll spoke the truth, but we should both keep a light pack with us just in case. This would not be a kind place to be stranded in without resources.”

  She nodded, her expression turning grim. She had a large soft bag with a shoulder strap, and she rifled through the contents and shifted over a few items from her carry-on. The last thing she added was a bottle of water. Then she pulled the shoulder strap over her head, lifted her snakes out of the way and settled it firmly across her torso.

  Duncan’s bag of essentials, with the weapons, money and sun protections, was a leather backpack. He pulled out a Beretta 9mm and a five inch hunting knife on a belt. After strapping the pack to his back, he buckled on the knife belt and tucked the gun into the waist of his jeans, making sure the butt was well visible.

  Seremela’s gaze lingered at his waist when he turned to her, but she said nothing about the weapons. She did not carry an obvious weapon, but he noticed that she did not tie back her snakes. Usually she bound them back loosely with a simple scarf at the base of her neck, as though they were dreadlocks. That allowed them to move around but limited their range of reach. Without them restricted in any way, she looked wilder, more feral and exceedingly deadly.

  He heartily approved. He asked, “Okay?”

  She nodded again. Face calm, eyes sharp. Gods, this woman was hotter than Death Valley in July.

  He couldn’t resist touching her again. He cupped her cheek and rubbed his thumb gently along the soft, plush arc of her lips. Her expression softened, and the look she gave him was filled with equal parts tenderness and amazement. He wanted to ask her what caused her to look so surprised when he touched her with affection. He wanted to kiss her slowly and savor that first, intimate taste of her.

  Hunger hissed along his nerve endings and turned aggressive. Her mouth would be so soft, the tender flesh giving way under his. He wanted to coax her lips apart and enter her with his tongue, and just the thought of deepening the kiss was so sexual his groin tightened.

  Someone shouted nearby, splintering the moment. Frowning, he glanced around at the dust filled parking lot then he offered Seremela his hand. She took it.

  “After this is over and we get back to Miami,” he asked, “where are we going to go for our first date?”

  Half a dozen of her snakes rose up to stare at him, and the nictating membranes snapped shut over Seremela’s eyes. Then opened. Then shut. And opened. She blinked rapidly and it stopped. “First date?”

  He wondered what that meant. Perhaps she got sand in her eyes. He asked, “Will you go out with me when we get back? I like the opera. But I like rock concerts too, and I’m a sucker for a good movie.”

  Her delighted smile was truly one of the loveliest expressions he had ever seen on her face. “Yes,” she said. “I like all of that too, but I especially like the opera.”

  “Perfect,” he said with satisfaction. “It’ll give us something to look forward to.”

  At the time, he had no idea how much that would matter.

  Hand-in-hand, together they walked into Devil’s Gate.

  It was everything he had expected, and more: dirty, stinky, unpredictable and overcrowded. The night was windless, and smoke from campfires hung in the air, thick with the scent of cigarette smoke, cooking meat and onions.

  The scene threw him into a cascade of memories. He remembered how incredulous he felt when he found out that his legal work had come to Carling’s attention. She had still been Queen of the Nightkind then, and she courted him with the wily patience of a professional politician and all the wisdom of a seasoned courtesan, until they had reached an agreement, about business and about other things.

  His last meal before she changed him had been a sixteen ounce porterhouse steak, medium rare, with fried potatoes, apple pie and cheddar cheese, and a Guinness.

  He remembered each detail as if it were yesterday. The meat had been so juicy and tender, he could cut it with his fork, and the potatoes had been crisp, salty with butter and a rich golden brown. The apple pie had been both tart and sweet, the tang of the sharp cheddar its perfect complement, and damn, that Guinness had been frothy and yeasty, like a satisfying novel for the taste buds, telling its dark, full-bodied and soul-nourishing story with every swallow. He had eaten until he thought he would burst.

  Even though he still dreamed about that meal, the real thing would turn his stomach now, and while the present day camp brought back vivid memories, there were plenty of differences too.

  The hellish red glows from the flames were interspersed with the cold, thin illumination from LED camping lanterns. Different kinds of music clashed, most of it blaring from boom boxes, but the sound of a few instruments, a guitar, a fiddle and drums, carried the piercing, startling sweetness of live passion.

  Painted prostitutes, both men and women, walked the “streets” between the tents, campers and a few mobile office buildings. Humans, Elves and Light Fae, Demonkind and Wyr, and of course, the Nightkind were out in force. Vampyres prowled the area, smiling white smiles, drawn by the lawlessness and the lure of so much living blood packed into one space. Duncan backed them off silently with a glittering look. The Vampyres took one look at his hard face and melted into the crowd.

  The tent city was a melting pot with the burner turned on high. At any minute he expected a fight to break out, and he wasn’t disappointed. They had to sidestep two brawls as they navigated to “main street,” the largest pathway that lay between camps.

  He didn’t pretend to himself that he was the only reason they remained unmolested. People took one look at Seremela, with her set expression, sharp gaze and snakes raised and wary, and they gave both of them a wide berth. When a drunk stumbled into her path and startled her, all her snakes whipped around and hissed at him, scaring him so badly he pissed himself as he ran away.

  Duncan murmured to Seremela, “The California Gold Rush was so much more charming than this. I’m sure it was.”

  She glanced at him sardonically. “And I’m sure you have swamp land in Florida you’d like to sell me.”

  He grinned and said to a tired looking, sunburned human, “We’re looking for the pharmacy. Do you know where it is?”

  The human’s gaze passed over him and lingered on Seremela. “Five or six camps down,” she said. “It’s one of the fancy ones. Hard to miss.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Wonder what she means by fancy,” Seremela muttered.

  They discovered the answer to that soon enough as they found one of the few mobile buildings several campsites down. A simple sign that said “Wendell’s” hung outside the door. The pale, cold light of LED lamps glowed through the window, and the door was propped open to the night air. Wendell’s was open for business.

  Normally Duncan always invited a lady to go first through the door, but normal wasn’t a definition that applied to this place. He stepped in first and looked around quickly, one hand on his gun. Inside, the mobile building was crowded with metal shelves filled with merchandise, anything from canned goods, tampons, toothpaste, aspirin and other pain relievers, and first aid supplies to other, more potent supplies.

  Duncan’s sharp glance took in the bottles of OxyContin, Percocet and Demerol in a glass, locked cabinet behind a counter. He had no doubt that the right price, not a prescription, would be the key that would open up that cabinet. It also had a shelf of baggies filled with marijuana, some rolled and some loose, and a couple of shelves filled with dark brown tincture bottles, homeopathic concoctions that glinted with sparks of magic.

  There were other people in the building. A few were obviously shoppers who took one look at Duncan and Seremela and then slipped out the open door. Duncan kept track of them until the last had left, but the main part of his attention was focused on the two people behind the counter.

  One of them was a tall, dangerous looking Light Fae male, his curly blond hair shaved close to his skull, which made his pointed ears
seem even longer. He wore two shoulder gun holsters over a tank top that bared a lot of golden brown skin. He watched Seremela with a flat, unfriendly gaze, resting a hand on one of his guns.

  Duncan’s jaw tightened. He did not like the sight of that. He turned his attention to the other person behind the counter, a short, slight human male with sharp eyes and a rather plain, aesthetic face. The male was easily the most intelligent person Duncan had laid eyes on since they arrived.

  He said, “You must be Wendell.”

  “You’re a quick one,” said Wendell. “Hence the sign outside my door.” He opened the foil wrap on a piece of Nicorette gum and popped it in his mouth, while his gaze took in everything about Duncan in one glance. “I recognize you. I know who you are.” He turned and dissected Seremela appearance. “You got here just in time for the execution, but I’m afraid bringing a lawyer even as famous as he is won’t do you any good.”

  Everything inside Duncan went cold and quiet when the other man said execution.

  Seremela looked at the pharmacist blankly. “Excuse me?”

  Wendell’s thin eyebrows rose. “You’re here about the Tarot reader, aren’t you? The one who offed Thruvial.”

  If anything, Seremela looked even more confused and disturbed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Eh, my mistake,” Wendell said, shrugging. “I thought since you were a medusa that was why you were here. Guess I’m as guilty of racial profiling as anybody else.”

  Duncan took a step forward, and the Light Fae muscle matched him step for step. He ignored the other male and said to the pharmacist, “Do you know how many medusae are here in Devil’s Gate?”

  Wendell scratched the back of his neck. “Aside from your companion, there’s only one that I know of—the Tarot reader. Young girl maybe twenty years old, wears Goth makeup, got a mouth on her.”

  “Goth makeup? Oh gods, Duncan,” Seremela said, her creamy skin going chalky. “He’s talking about Vetta.”

  Fuck. Fuck.

  “Yeah, that’s her name,” said Wendell. His sharp gaze had turned curious and more than a little avid. “I’ll give you this much information for free, since it’s common knowledge anyway. They say she poisoned a man a couple days ago. Someone who was very important here. They’re going to hang her at dawn.”

  Chapter Five

  The Depths

  Panic and disorientation sank claws into Seremela and wouldn’t let her go.

  Vetta was to be hanged? For poisoning someone?

  She couldn’t drag in a deep enough breath and struggled for air as she stared at the human and his Light Fae bodyguard.

  The Light Fae bruiser stared back at her, his cynical expression turning wary. He took a couple steps back and drew his gun.

  “Leash your dog,” Duncan said sharply. “He’s about to get stupid.”

  What dog? Duncan moved so fast he blurred, crowding her back against a wall. Seremela stared at him blankly. What the hell was he doing?

  When he stopped, he stood between her and the Light Fae, and belated understanding slammed into her—he was shielding her with his body.

  At the same moment the nerdy human snapped, “Holster it, Dain.”

  Lean, strong fingers came under her chin, and Duncan forcibly turned her face toward him. “Don’t look at him,” Duncan said to her in a quiet voice. “Look at me.”

  She tried to focus on him. That was when she realized all her snakes were hissing at the Light Fae. Her panic had turned them deadly. She could feel them, roused and wanting to bite, and as she looked over Duncan’s shoulder, she could tell that the Light Fae male knew it.

  “At me, Seremela,” Duncan whispered gently.

  Her attention shifted back to him. He raised a hand and stroked it along a few of the snakes, and they quit hissing and wrapped around his forearm. Even though his back was turned to an unknown male with his gun drawn, Duncan looked calm, his dark gaze steady.

  As soon as he knew he had gotten her attention, he smiled at her. “They’re not going to hang her,” he said telepathically. “We won’t let them.”

  She calmed, marginally. They were only two people in an overcrowded, dangerous and unknown place. Maybe it was ridiculous to believe him. Certainly it was neither sensible nor logical, but she did.

  Impulsively she reached up to touch his lean cheek, more of the snakes reaching for him, and his gaze warmed. “Duncan, I don’t know what he’s talking about,” she said. “Vetta isn’t a Tarot reader, and she might be a total contrary shit, but she’s not a murderer. That’s insane. If—if by any chance she did kill someone, she wouldn’t have had any other choice.”

  He frowned. “We need to ask some questions now. Whatever he says, we’re going to make this right. Okay?”

  She nodded jerkily. “Okay.”

  He took her hand and kissed her fingertips, then carefully disengaged himself. Only then did he turn around to face the pharmacist and his Light Fae guard, who had holstered his gun.

  All of her snakes had calmed as she had calmed. She gathered them to her and nudged them behind her shoulder as Duncan said, pleasantly, “Let’s start this conversation over, shall we?”

  Wendell regarded them both with narrowed eyes. “Fine, but you’re scaring away my paying customers, so your free sample is over,” he said, chewing gum. “You want to know anything else, you gotta pay. Standard 411 rate is ten dollars a minute, not including additional rates for premium intel.”

  Anger sparked in Seremela at the human’s callousness. She had never in her life wanted to hurt another creature, but she was pretty sure she could hurt this one. Just one bite, she thought as she fixed a cold, level gaze on him. All it would take is one, and your heart rate would slow, your skin would turn dry and flake off and you would be scared, nauseated and fucking miserable for a week. And I think I would like that very much.

  Even as she thought it, a single snake slipped over her shoulder and rose to the level of her cheekbone. It too stared at Wendell unblinkingly, until the human shifted on his stool and looked away.

  Aw, she’d made him squirm. Yee-fucking-haw.

  Duncan slipped his hands in his jeans pockets, standing relaxed. “Your rate’s unimaginative but doable,” he said.

  The human’s thin mouth tilted sourly, and he shifted again. “What the fuck do you mean by that?”

  “There are much more valuable things than cash, Wendell,” Duncan said. “Like alliances, protection and immunity.”

  Wendell’s eyebrows rose. “You think you could offer me protection or immunity? You’ve barely set foot in this place. You have no social equity here, Vampyre. You don’t know the Power brokers, and you have no alliances. You know nothing.”

  “The world is a much wider place than this dusty little pile of tents,” Duncan said. He gave the human a cold smile, and a touch of a whip entered his voice, precisely balanced just so with a delicate lash of contempt. “But no worries, Wendell. If you want money, you’ll get money. Tell us what happened, with details, names and times.”

  Wendell paused, regarding Duncan with equal parts greed and caution, and Seremela could tell he was rethinking the last few minutes. Then the pharmacist said, “There may not be any law here, but there is a balance of Power. Or there was, until one of the Power brokers was killed yesterday. Things are a bit destabilized at the moment.”

  “Who were the Power brokers, and what did they control?” Duncan asked. “You’re not one of them.”

  “Nah,” said Wendell as he glanced at his watch. “My motive is profit, not power. I’m strictly in parking and pharmaceuticals, with a side interest now and then in information. The real Power brokers in Devil’s Gate are hard core. There’s an Elf with an affinity to Earth. Caerlovena is her name. She’s got a lock on most of the diggers. Then there’s a Djinn, Malphas, who has a lock on all the casinos, and I mean all of them. And until yesterday, there was Cieran Thruvial, who locked on prostitutes and protection. All the shops and vendors owed him
a cut of their take.”

  “Cieran Thruvial,” Duncan said. Surprise flickered in his gaze. “I know that name.”

  Seremela shook her head. Inside she was reeling again. “That can’t be right,” she said. “I don’t see Vetta turning to prostitution. I guess she could have, but I just don’t see it.”

  Wendell shrugged. “Well, the girl read Tarot, or at least that’s what her tent sign said. She charged for quarter hour and half hour readings. She did a good business too, from what I heard. I don’t know if she was turning tricks on the side or not, but like a lot of other shop keepers, she owed Thruvial protection money. They had a tempestuous relationship and argued a lot in public. I gotta say, it seemed real intimate.”

  “Where is she now?” Seremela asked, the words scraping in her dry, constricted throat.

  “Malphas is holding her until dawn,” Wendell said, and for the first time since they met him, something like sympathy crept into his gaze. “Scary dude, that Djinn. I’m not sure what he cares about, if anything.”

  “Thruvial is a Fae name,” Duncan said abruptly. “Was this Cieran Thruvial Dark Fae?”

  This time, both Wendell and his guard shifted their attention to Duncan, their expressions sharpening. Speaking for the first time, the guard said, “Yes.”

  Wendell asked, “You knew him?”

  Duncan’s face had turned expressionless. He said, “I met him once.”

  “Where?” The pharmacist looked avid again.

  Duncan gave him a sardonic smile. “That’s not part of our agreement, Wendell. Where’s the best place to find Malphas?”

  Wendell made a face but said, “Much as he hangs anywhere, I guess it would be Gehenna—that’s the name of his main casino. Get it? Devil’s Gate—Gehenna. Ar ar ar, right?”

  Duncan’s dark gaze shifted to her. He asked the pharmacist, “What do we owe you?”

  “You’re not going to ask me how to find Gehenna?” Wendell asked.

  Duncan shook his head. “We don’t need you anymore.”