by Jenn Stark
Brody’s eyes narrowed on me across the table, but I didn’t have time for him. I didn’t have time for anyone other than people who could give me answers, and those people were not in this room.
They were, however, in this city.
“Guys, I think I’m going to—”
“No, wait, I wanted to tell you!” Dixie brightened and turned to me with beseeching eyes. She did beseeching very well. Brody didn’t stand a chance. “You remember you asked about Jimmy next door?”
I blinked at her. “Who?”
“Next door! Jimmy Shadow. Darkworks Ink? The tattoo parlor?”
“Oh! Sure, right.” The tattoo parlor next to Dixie’s wedding chapel was every bit as Vegas kitsch as the Chapel of Everlasting Love in the Stars, but with less white stucco. And no costumed plaster geese. “Did he decide to get married or something?”
Dixie snorted daintily, as only she could do. “Hardly. All this time, I thought he was the owner of the store, but today he bursts in asking for flowers. Flowers! His boss is relocating back to the Strip, he said, and he wanted to make the place look nice for her. Not that I think pink and white carnations would do anything to spruce up the décor of a tattoo parlor, but you know, boys.” She lifted a shoulder, as if to dismiss the decorating abilities of the entire masculine gender. “He was totally adorable and earnest. It did my heart good to see him that way. He always sort of scowls, you know?”
I nodded, edging her gently toward her point. “So did you meet the boss?”
“And she’s a her?” Nikki put in on the heels of my question. “That place totally reeks of guy, I gotta say.”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Brody held up his hands.
“I didn’t meet her, but I saw her.” Dixie’s eyes shone with the gleam of the victorious gossip. “And believe me, she suits the place just fine. She’s white as snow with a partially shaved head, piercings that run up her ears and one full sleeve of ink that I could see. She showed up today in a tank top and leather jeans on the back of a motorcycle, and stumbled off, totally drunk, if you ask me. Jimmy comes running out and grabs her, and I caught the barest glimpse of her face.” Dixie sniffed delicately. “I suspect she’s usually pretty, even with the haircut. But when I saw her, she looked like death.”
Every one of my nerve endings pricked to attention. I slid a glance toward Nikki. “I don’t suppose you go in for tattoos? If only to be polite and meet the neighbors?”
“And mar the perfection of my girlish form? Not a chance.” Nikki grinned. She eyed Brody. “And you, sir?”
He shook his head. “Tattoos were frowned on when I joined the force, and I joined the force young,” he said. “By the time I got to a place where I didn’t think it would matter, the urge had passed.” He raised a brow at Dixie. “You?”
“Well, none I would reveal in polite company,” she simpered.
“Right.” I took another hard slug of bourbon, then pushed the glass away from me. “Thanks for the scoop, Dixie—and guys, for the drinks. I think I’m going to head home.”
Brody straightened instantly. “I’ll drive you.”
“No, you won’t.” I held up a hand, doing my level best to keep it steady. It was easier than it should have been. While the rest of the Strip had had their magical mojo recently enhanced, I’d apparently been given preternatural skills at holding my liquor. Everybody had to have a gift, I suppose. “I need the fresh air, and the Palazzo is right up the street. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you tomorrow about next steps.”
Nikki shifted in her seat. “I gotta bolt anyway. Keep me company, dollface?”
Nikki’s tone was absolute, and I didn’t try to fight her. As we stood, I watched Brody allow Dixie to cuddle up to him a little more closely, and I allowed myself not to hurl. I nodded to him and Dixie with an “I can’t really see you” glance perfected by waitresses and librarians.
We turned and made it out of the bar within thirty seconds, the sights and sounds of the city surrounding us.
“Where are you really headed?” Nikki asked as she hailed a cab. “Because we both know it ain’t the Palazzo.” She blinked as she looked at me, then nodded before I could say anything. “Prime Luxe. Good. I’ll ride with.”
Without another word, she folded me into the taxi and slid in beside me. We eased into traffic, and I looked up past the flashing lights of the casinos to catch the image-on-image reflection of the Council’s digs.
As always, the sheer magnificence of their domains took me by surprise—the enormous metal-and-glass fortress of the Magician’s Prime Luxe, soaring over the Luxor; the peaked glass foolscap structure over Bellagio, where the Fool now lived; the Devil’s glass monolith, Scandal, always pulsing with a Technicolor light show atop the Flamingo. There were three other towers on the Strip, all of them empty: the black tower over Paris, and a grey stone keep above Caesars Palace, the white tower above Treasure Island. These magnificent domains loomed over the Strip in awesome, glittering majesty, though only a few of the strongest Connecteds in the city could see them.
I spent an extra moment longer than I needed, staring at them, trying to decide my course. Despite what I’d said to the others, I had no intention of turning in this early. I wanted to see the Magician, and, more importantly, I wanted answers.
I frowned as we drove toward the Luxor. I hadn’t heard a peep from Armaeus all day—same as when I’d come home from Germany. Maybe he couldn’t at first because he’d been so ill, but he’d gotten better. He was healed, or at least healing. He was temporarily mortal, true, but that shouldn’t stop him from connecting to me psychically.
To test the idea, I tried opening up my mind, quietly at first, then with greater urgency, pushing out toward Armaeus, imagining our minds connecting, joining. Armaeus? I asked, thinking the word as clearly as I could. Are you there?
The response came back immediately. “I’ve been expecting you, Miss Wilde.”
Chapter Six
Where Armaeus was expecting me, technically, was not his office. The doors of the elevator opened onto the conference room, a chamber I couldn’t help but approach with an entrenched feeling of dread.
“Where is she,” I called out, standing in the elevator. I had no problems hitting the down button again if the High Priestess was in residence. Armaeus’s conference room had been the site of more than one of my top ten worst experiences as a psychic, and they all could be traced back to one person. “If you’re in there waiting for me, Eshe, I’m in no mood to play Around the World today.”
“Eshe isn’t here.” Armaeus’s voice sounded against my actual ears instead of my brain, so I stepped into the room. It was dimly lit, exactly the kind of look Eshe favored for her oracular trances, so I wasn’t about to let my guard down. “Since the events of recent days, she’s gained considerable ground in astral travel without an intermediary. She is in seclusion until she perfects the art.”
“Seclusion, huh? Tell her to check in for an extended stay.” Nevertheless, I couldn’t escape the awkwardness of the moment. The last time I’d seen Armaeus, he’d been in my arms for a good portion of the conversation. I kind of wanted that to happen again, which was a little unsettling. Ordinarily, getting too close to the Magician made me panic. Now it was making me pant. What was going on?
“So, um, how are you feeling?” I asked brightly.
“Much improved. You should sit. We have much to discuss.”
Armaeus gestured me forward to the end of the conference table, where a soft blue illumination from the surface keyed me into the fact that he was about to play show-and-tell. I moved forward, grateful for something to focus on to take my attention off his presence.
Because his presence was exceedingly…present.
Armaeus was dressed in a style that I suspected he would call “casual.” A creamy linen jacket was unbuttoned to reveal a smooth white shirt, open at the neck. A hint of his bronzed skin showed at his neck. His hair was brushed back away from his face, accentuating his sharp cheekbones a
nd dark, flashing eyes. Eyes that remained way too dark, for those keeping score. Which I definitely was.
I slid into the seat opposite him at the corner of the table. “What have you been doing all day?” I asked, innocent as all hell. “Discovering new vistas to your magic previously unexplored?”
He studied me. “Why? Have you?”
“Only if you count a preternatural ability to hold my liquor.” At his raised eyebrows, I shrugged. “It’s been a hard day.”
As I said the words, the mere act of having to tell him something so basic struck me with its wrongness. “What’s the dealio with you lately, anyway?” I pressed. “I haven’t felt you in my head once in days. You finally reach the point where I bore you?”
“Never that.” He smiled and sat back, eyeing me expectantly. I knew that look. It was classic “professor waiting for the student to figure out the obvious answer herself” look. And he was a big fan of it.
“What?” I sat back as well, swiveling my chair a little for good measure. I could do “stupid student” like nobody’s business.
“You have undoubtedly noticed the effects of the influx of magic visited upon Vegas recently in your associates. You have been affected by the same influx, Miss Wilde, regardless of whether or not you choose to accept it.”
And then, of course, I got it. “Wait. You can’t read my mind—at all? You can’t track me?” My eyes flared wide. “I have a total cloak of invisibility and didn’t know it?”
His expression tightened. “When you choose to allow me to see you, as you did when you were here this morning, my ability to plumb your mind is as it ever was. The difference, as you say, is that I no longer have a foothold. Until you invite me in, you are essentially barred from me.”
“And I’m it?” I couldn’t help but bounce a little “At least while I’m amped, I’m the only one in the world who can do that? Or…no. The Council members mind-block you too. They have to.”
“Only in a situation of extreme duress would I trespass on the Council members’ minds.”
“Right.” I wheeled the chair a little farther back from him. “So, you can’t crawl around in my head. I guess that’s good. But it seems I should’ve gotten more jacked up, you know? More on the mystical-power side of the equation. I totally feel swindled here.”
“I suspect you’re simply not paying attention. Your physical strength has been enhanced, your endurance. Your tolerance for alcohol, as you’ve noticed.”
“My strength?” I stretched my hands in front of me, inspecting them for additional meatiness. “I haven’t noticed that so much.”
“Indeed.” He waved his hand over the table, and a schematic came to life. “Approximately how long would you say it took you to move from the tunnels below Neuschwanstein to the valley immediately below Hohenschwangau?”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t timing it.”
“Your hairpin was chipped. You made the trek in slightly under ten minutes, which explains why you outran your assailants after your initial discovery. Ordinarily the amount of terrain would have required thirty. Do you recall being winded? Stressed?”
“I recall being chased by dogs. Does that count?”
“Where before your body relied on adrenaline to survive, your natural physical reactions have adapted to suit your needs more effectively.” Armaeus tapped the screen, and the map changed to a topographical feed, showing the clearing where I’d encountered the Valkyries. “Your chip was scrambled for approximately five minutes here, until you started moving again. What took place, precisely?”
I frowned. “I thought you knew about the Valkyries.”
“I knew they were there. Not what they said to you.”
I weighed my options carefully. I needed Armaeus’s help if I wanted to get the answers I needed regarding Viktor and the missing children. Even if he didn’t have a currently active all-brain access pass, he could tell when I was keeping secrets. It wasn’t too hard: I was always keeping secrets.
This one I was willing to share. “The Valkyries saw that I’d taken the box and Mim’s horn out of the castle. They let me keep them. They told me it was time for me to gather my weapons. That mean anything to you?”
“Of course. What else?”
“They said you owed them.” I eyed him. “Care to explain?”
“The Valkyries are ancient beings, and their speech is twisted with cunning.” Armaeus tilted his head, considering. In that moment, he looked almost human, and I shook off the sensation of unease that realization brought. “Did they say anything else?”
“They were kind of big on death—speaking of.” And here we were, at question number one. “Is Death in Vegas?”
Armaeus’s expression didn’t change, which gave me my answer.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, thinking back to Dixie’s description of the new owner of Darkworks Ink. “She works at a tattoo parlor? Do you people have no shame?”
“It amuses her, and given how long she has walked this earth, amusement is in short supply.”
I managed a tight smile, but I for one, was not amused. Death was here in Vegas.
While Armaeus was mortal.
Somehow, that didn’t sound like the best of ideas.
“Why has she come back?” I asked. “You summoned her?”
“The High Priestess has summoned all the Council. Those who can hear the call and choose to assemble, that is.”
“She summoned…” I shook my head, my stomach bunching into knots. “But you’re mortal now. They’re going to know that, right? They’re going to know that you’re not at full strength?” I stared at him. “Does Eshe know?”
“Death’s appearance in Vegas will be noted and that will aid our efforts, regardless of her direct involvement with Council activities,” he said, ignoring my other questions. “When you visit her, have a care, Miss Wilde. She is not what you might expect.”
“Right. Is she new, old? When did she come aboard your merry crew?”
“Before my time, you’ll be pleased to know.” His lips twitched. “Not before Eshe’s.”
“So she’s a veteran. No wonder she keeps to herself.” I steadied my glare at him then, and asked the question burning in my gut. Viktor Dal was Connected. A friend of the Council’s. And for the last ten years, he’d been all but invisible to anyone trying to find him.
“When did Viktor Dal become Emperor, exactly?” I asked stonily. “And since when do you willingly accept child-abducting scum into your fold?”
To his credit, Armaeus didn’t hesitate.
“Viktor Dal is a newer incarnation to the Council,” he said, his voice cold with a hint of disdain. “He has not learned all that he should. He ascended on the eve of World War II. At that time, the Council was based in Munich, and he was very much affiliated with the—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Munich?”
“You surely didn’t think we were always based in Las Vegas?”
“But…geez. Munich in pre-war Germany.” I shook my head, refocusing. “So he came aboard the Council. When did he leave it? When did you lose touch with him?”
It was Armaeus’s turn to study me. “You cannot truly kill him, Miss Wilde. You must know that.”
“Yeah, well. We’ll see.” I reinforced my mental barriers, just in case.
Armaeus knew only what I’d known when I’d allowed him to poke through my mind about the day I left Memphis. Back then, I hadn’t even considered Viktor as a person of interest. I hadn’t known much of anything about the man who’d stolen the psychic children, other than that he’d been impossible to track, impossible to beat. Impossible…because he was on the freaking Arcana Council, a group I hadn’t known existed.
“Miss Wilde?” Armaeus prompted.
His aristocratic voice suddenly galled me. “Viktor Dal was the man behind the theft of children in the last case I worked in Memphis, Armaeus. You know that. You’ve known it all along,” I blurted. “Viktor showed me that fake pet mausoleum, but I think
the kids are still alive. You do too, I suspect.” I stared at him. “How did I miss him back then? He was right there, and I never even thought of him!”
He leaned forward. “If I may…”
He wanted to connect with me mentally. Something strange shifted deep in me, and I nodded once, tightly. If he was Spock, he would have placed his fingers on my temple and done the Vulcan mind-meld. But he wasn’t Spock, and he did things his way.
Armaeus moved the rest of the way forward, until his lips brushed mine.
I’d been kissed by Armaeus before. As the Magician, his brand of magic worked best and fastest with physical touch, the more intimate that touch, the better. But this connection still took me by surprise. It was more intense, intimate. Without thinking, I lifted my hands to the side of his face, holding him as I leaned in to deepen the kiss. Something stirred in me, deep and profound.
The moment stretched in crystal purity, then—
Armaeus’s hands suddenly lifted to cover mine. He pulled his face away and gazed at me, his eyes glittering a dark gold with the knowledge he’d pulled from my mind, my heart. My past.
Knowledge and…something else.
He pressed my hands together between his palms, the heat from his body warming me when I hadn’t realized I was cold.
“Viktor Dal was the man you were hunting all those years ago,” he said. “And you knew it then, on some level. You identified him. You drew the Emperor card.”
Shock roiled through me. “I didn’t know—”
“The King of Swords was his covering personality, but you knew. You merely couldn’t accept it,” Armaeus continued, his voice flat and detached, as if he was recounting the details of a long-ago mass murder. In a way, I suppose he was. “Your mother—” His gaze flickered, then he seemed to become human again, and he frowned. “Not your mother.”
