Born To Be Wilde: Immortal Vegas, Book 3

by Jenn Stark

  Nikki was still doctoring her mug of caffeine when Blue poked her head into the front room. “Jimmy, could use you on the finish work.” She eyed me and swung her gaze to Nikki, her brows lifting. “You both doing a jump?”

  “No,” I said before Nikki could finish choking on her coffee.

  “You came back, like, five seconds ago,” Nikki managed, turning her attention to Blue. “Is that too soon for her to do whatever it is you mean by jumping? Because she was fried to a crisp and poked full of holes last time, and while Armaeus knows we’re here while he’s entertaining Viktor the Cruel, he’s not physically on-site to put her into a cocoon when she comes back. And that seems like it’d be a problem.”

  Blue studied me intently. “You were damaged in transition? That shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Well, good, that makes me feel better about what’s coming next, then,” I said, standing. “We should probably get moving.”

  She stood aside and gestured me back, her gaze dropping to my wrist as I passed her. “You shouldn’t have been hurt that badly,” she said again, sounding more curious than concerned. “The transition to Atlantis was smooth?”

  “It happened on the way back.” Nikki provided the color commentary as we moved to room three. “She was fine, doing her thing, then she got a tank dropped on her head and Armaeus couldn’t yank her out of there fast enough.”

  “Stop.” We turned at the change in Blue’s voice, her eyes wide and hard on me. “You were attacked? By whom? There’s nothing left in Atlantis but ruin.”

  “Well, there were two sets of creatures there—they looked to my eyes like angels and demons, but I admit I was a little hazy on the details. The atmosphere was strange, I was moving fast. But that’s what they looked like.”

  “And they attacked you.” She was looking at me as if expecting me to reveal a secret. “That’s all they did.”

  “Well…no.” I blew out a breath as Nikki watched me. She’d seen what I had seen in Atlantis, no recorders required. “I wanted to talk to you about that. They… It was almost as if they recognized me. I was carrying the scales of the Justice card, and I get that I might have seemed familiar because of the card in the Atlantean deck. But at first, their recognition seemed to be a good thing. Then—not so much.”

  “Right.” Blue wasn’t looking at me anymore but busying herself with her workstation. I sighed as I saw the familiar tools. If I kept this up, I was going to have a sleeve of my own by Christmas. “The creatures you’re describing are tied to the card you are speaking of, yes,” Blue finally said. “They do her bidding. But she’s not Justice in the Atlantean deck. None of those cards tally exactly with the Major Arcana. They were more powerful, but also more flawed. It proved their downfall.”

  “Seems like a lot of folks met their downfall in Atlantis.” Nikki poked her finger into the illusions lining the walls. “Does anyone actually fall for this?”

  “It’s not meant to hold up to close scrutiny, merely to appease the lookie-loos. If it bothers you…” Death waved her hand, and the room returned to its austere lines—the chair, the tools, and four walls.

  “Ew, no,” Nikki said, and the image of bookcases and posters resettled in place. “I’m good with illusions.”

  Blue smiled as she turned back to me, but her gaze was searching. “The card you drew is called Vigilance, not Justice. The creatures who serve it are known as Watchers. They obey unquestioningly, and their wrath is unstinting to any that stand in their path. Anything in particular trigger them to make the move on you? You incite them in any way?”

  “Not that I thought,” I said. I got into the seat as Blue pulled her chair closer. “I was talking to Armaeus, not them. I couldn’t speak their language.”

  “Mm. And what did you say to Armaeus?”

  I sat back in the chair as the now-familiar sound of the whirring needle stirred to life. “I asked him to help me,” I said.

  “Ah.” Blue bent down to scrutinize my right arm, then glanced up at me. “This will be a lesser mark, but a more costly one. I warned you.”

  I forced my arm to stay still. “I know. I’m ready.”

  “No,” she said faintly. So faintly I barely heard her. “But you will pay the price nevertheless.”

  She bent toward me, and the moment the needle touched my flesh—this time on the inside curve of my arm—pain exploded around me in a burst of agony. I vaguely realized that Nikki had bounded forward, at first to protest but then to hold me down as Blue murmured words I had no intention of deciphering if they brought with them this much pain.

  The slash she half inked, half burned into me was small but intricate, an out-of-control Möbius strip that wove in a tight circuit over my skin, looping back on itself at the last second when it seemed obvious that it would stretch out into a wider trail. I didn’t black out this time, though I wished I had, and it surprised me how quickly she was done. She backed away from me and motioned to Nikki, whose hands didn’t leave my hip and shoulder right away. They only slightly loosened, their hold remaining firm. Like a handler setting loose a fawn in the wild, providing comfort until the very last moment.

  “I’m fine,” I rasped at length, and Blue turned away before I could see her face, attending to her tools once more.

  Jimmy was at my other side with his omnipresent water bottle. “It’ll help,” he said in his soft voice, and given Nikki’s mute nod, I took it. The water tasted cool and chemical free, and I was about to ask for pain relievers to go with it, when I realized there was no more pain.

  “Why did this one hurt more?” I asked, staring down at the angry symbol on my inner elbow. “Is the skin thinner there?”

  “Many reasons,” Blue said. She swiveled back around to me. “You didn’t know what to expect the first time, and were prepared for the worst. This time, you’d had an experience already and expected it to be the same. When it wasn’t, your mind reacted with an outsized sensitivity.”

  “Right.” Handing the water bottle back to Jimmy, I inched myself higher in my seat. “Why else?”

  “Because of where you’re going. There are several layers of dimensions that surround us, each more complex than the last.”

  “Like the nine circles of hell?”

  She smiled. “You might say that. Atlantis, for all its flaws, remains fairly close. It’s an island sunk out of time and mind, but there is nothing there…” Her lips twisted. “Well, there’s not supposed to be anything there. For the Watchers to have found you is an anomaly I haven’t had time to fully consider.” She lifted a hand to forestall my protest. “And no, I won’t tell Armaeus until you are ready. You both will be busy enough.”

  That didn’t sound good, but I needed to focus on the task at hand. “What about this place I’m heading? Viktor showed me, it looked pretty much earthlike.”

  “That’s an illusion, as you’ll see when you reach it. The demons that Viktor mentioned are known as the Syx, with a y. Contrary to popular belief, they are not allied with the Devil, certainly not the Devil as we know him on the Arcana Council. They’re older creatures, from a time when the earth was formed, but they ruled as generals and were swept out when the Arcana Council destroyed Atlantis.” Her expression was wintry. “Viktor is ever fond of reminding the Council of the sins of its fathers. The wholesale eradication of magic was a result unforeseen when the Council was formed to take on Llyr. At the time, the sacrifice was considered worth it. And magic did recover, eventually. The Syx have watched this evolution with an untamed hunger, as they watch all things.”

  “And Viktor thought the children would be safe with them.”

  “Not at all.” Blue leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. Her ice-blue eyes were bleak in her pale face, her platinum-blonde hair spiked high. Today, a set of intricate cuffs trailed down her right ear to the tip of her lobe, before ending in chains that looped back up to the top cuff again to begin the cycle once more. She wore no other jewelry, no makeup, and her thin lips caught my attention nex
t as she spoke again. “Viktor thought the Syx would kill those children. He offered them as payment.”

  “Payment for what, though?” Nikki’s voice was sharp. “That was, what, ten years ago? He’s been nowhere on the map since then. As far as we know, he hasn’t been trafficking in human cargo either, or knocking over any third world countries. What could he have gotten in return that would have been worth getting caught?”

  Blue shrugged. “Perhaps it is not what he was paying forward, but paying back. We simply do not know. When Viktor left the Council and entered seclusion, we were as barred to him as anyone else. It was his right to do so, and our rules have lasted too long to discount. We did not know of these children, much as we did not know of you.”

  That sounded ominous. “What do you mean?”

  “Ten years ago, you saw Llyr in the midst of a confrontation with Viktor’s magic, and yet—hundreds of miles away, the Council was unaware of any ripple in the veil. We only learned of it when Armaeus decided to use you for his work and realized you were nothing like he expected. He hates that.”

  “I’ve noticed.” I considered what she said. “You think Viktor is a lot stronger than any of us realize, and that these Syx have something to do with it?”

  “I offer it only as a possibility. The web of magic is fraying in some corners and reforming in others, a constantly changing weave. I do not have all the answers.”

  In that moment, I didn’t believe Blue on that score, but I realized I didn’t need to. I had work to do. “So these Syx. Will they know I’ve shown up in their, um, dimension? Because I totally slept through the demon-slayer portion of my training.”

  “You too are a key,” Blue said, pointing to my wrist. The red flare surrounding the ink was already fading, and all that remained was the intricate Möbius strip, a Celtic knot of misdirection. “Your only task is to go in, get the children, and get out.”

  It was Nikki who pointed out the obvious flaw in this plan. “Except there’s only one of her, and there are six of children. They’re all grown up too. And if what we’ve been seeing on this side is all an illusion, they could be a hell of a lot worse off than we think. How is she going to pull them all back?”

  “The same way she brought back artifacts from Atlantis,” Blue said, standing. “What she touches can move in space and time with her, if that is her intention. So”—she turned to me, her eyes a mocking challenge—“be careful what you touch.”

  “Um, as I recall, those weapons were impaled in me, not touching me.”

  “Because that is their nature. Mortal hands are not intended to pierce, but to hold.”

  That seemed reasonable enough. I looked at Nikki. “Now?”

  She drew her cap down more firmly on her head. “Not like I’ve got anything else going on today. Let’s hit it.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  We stopped at the front desk to reclaim my throwing stars, then left Darkworks. We didn’t need to go far—I was already abuzz with energy. Nikki had seen me go across and had helped bring me back. She could do that again.

  Nevertheless, Blue had left me unsettled. She hadn’t said anything specific, but her cryptic warnings and meaningful looks made me think she knew a lot more than she was letting on. And her reaction to the weird reception I’d had in Atlantis from the Watchers struck me as off too. I didn’t know enough about Death to truly understand her moods, though. It would take time to understand that. And time wasn’t on my side right now.

  “We’re going to need backup, Nikki,” I muttered. “I don’t know what I’m going to walk into, but I can’t be shadowed by someone from the Council. If they know, Viktor might know. I have no idea how deep their hive mind goes.”

  “Agreed.” She pointed at the chapel.

  Not surprisingly, Dixie’s white convertible was parked in front of it. A little more surprisingly, Brody’s brown sedan was beside it. The two looked odd next to each other, but no odder than the couple itself, at least to my mind.

  “Dixie and Brody?” she suggested. “They’re both amped and Connected at this point. And you know as well as I do that Brody will be chafed to the bone if you don’t bring him in.”

  I blew out a breath. It made sense, and they both were here. Of course, they seemed to be everywhere together these days, Dixie using their newly rekindled romance as reason enough to embroil Brody into every Connected quarrel within ten miles of the Strip. But I needed backup, and one didn’t look a gift detective in the mouth. Let alone someone with the Connected abilities of Dixie Quinn. Even before the augmentation had hit her, she was channeling some serious psychic ability—stronger than Nikki, potentially.

  “I don’t have a ton of patience for explanation,” I warned Nikki, and she snorted.

  “Trust me, I don’t think Brody will either. Let’s hope they’re not canoodling. I’m full up on canoodling today.”

  “Power, sister.”

  Fortunately, we were spared that visual. Coming around the corner to the wide-open door of Dixie’s office, the first thing I noticed wasn’t the two of them, but a map of the Strip laid out on a foam-core board stuck full of pins, many of which were linked together with colorful thread. Brody and Dixie stood on opposite sides of the thing, scowling down at it like it’d just said a bad word.

  Nikki voiced the question paramount in my mind. “What the hell is that?” she blurted. “And why low-tech?”

  “Nikki!” Dixie brought her head up, her smile wide enough to take us both in. Once again, I felt my innate resistance to Dixie chip away another bit. It wasn’t her fault that she was beautiful, sweet, good-hearted, and dating the man I’d pined over when I was a teenager. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t her fault. “And Sara. You’re looking so well!”

  I blinked at the unexpected compliment. “Um—thanks. What’s that?” I pointed at the map, my curiosity easily masking my confusion.

  “Danae is in a tizz, ditto her coven,” Dixie said. “We’re trying to untangle why.” She gestured to the map. “Literally.”

  My brows went up. Danae was the witch from the Chicago coven who had proven so necessary to maintaining the integrity of the Vegas psychic power grid during the attack from SANCTUS. To do so, she had remapped and reinforced the magic of the ley lines beneath Vegas. “She’s still in Vegas?”

  “She’d planned on leaving yesterday, but no sooner had she packed her last bag than the bottom fell out of the city, literally.” Dixie drew her long fingernail across the map. “The ley lines are jumping around like underground lightning strikes. It’s been happening since yesterday afternoon. No one knows why, least of all Danae. And she’s not happy about it. These pins are workplaces of Connecteds who have reported strange reactions. Adrenaline spikes, psy abilities surging or completely guttering out, visions and dreams they can’t understand. We’ve got reports coming in by the dozen.”

  “Since yesterday afternoon?” I looked at Brody, who stared at me knowingly. “Viktor?”

  “Has to be.” He rocked back on his heels, his hands in his pants pocket as I unshouldered my pack. “We haven’t been able to locate him for several hours. But to our knowledge, he hasn’t used any form of public transportation out of the city—no flight manifest, no chartered vehicles. So he’s here, somewhere, behind closed doors. No way of knowing if he’s the one jacking the energy.” Then his gaze dropped. “What the hell are you pulling out of that bag? Is that a table saw blade?”

  “Close enough.” I leaned the throwing stars against the wall and peered down at the map. “A lot’s happened since yesterday afternoon.” Nevertheless, I didn’t feel particularly jacked. I didn’t think I had any connection to the ley lines going on the fritz. “Does Danae have any explanation?”

  “None,” Dixie said, “and it’s put a bee in her bonnet, as you might imagine. She was looking forward to getting home to her walled garden of pure Connecteds.” She wrinkled her nose. “Our more liberal views were already not setting well with her. Add in this burst of unexplained magical
power, and she’s beside herself.”

  “No injuries yet?”

  “Not a one.” She shook her head. “It’s like the world is holding its breath, you know?”

  Nikki and I exchanged a glance. Brody caught it. “What?” he asked. “What have you learned?”

  I couldn’t find the words. Fortunately, with Nikki around, I didn’t have long to wait. “Sara’s ready to get the children.” She held up her hand. “It’s not going to be pretty, it is going to freak you out, and we do need to get started.”

  “I don’t have my team in place yet.” He glared at me. “We need doctors. Shrinks. You know that.” Brody ran his hand through his hair. “I haven’t started calling the parents.”

  “Parents!” I snapped the word more sharply than I intended.

  But of course he should call the parents. That only made sense. Didn’t make it feel right, though. I picked up the largest of the stars, taking comfort in its solidity.

  “We don’t know how they’re going to come back, Brody,” I said. “Or if. I’ve never done this before, not like this.” I decided this wouldn’t be a good time to discuss how messed up I’d been the last time I’d made the attempt. From the look on Nikki’s face, that was a good call.

  “All the more reason to have professionals here.” He pulled out his phone. “I’m calling to put the EMTs on standby, at the very least. They come in unable to breathe, injured, we want to be ready. You guys—” He waved the phone at us, turning away. “Get ready.”

  Dixie led the charge. Shutting down a wedding chapel was less of a production than I would have expected, and within a few minutes, every entry was locked down tight with no clear indication of when it would open again.

  The main wedding chapel seemed too large for our needs, but the secondary chapel, done up in a Mediterranean Mermaids theme at present, seemed small enough to manage but large enough to serve as a reception hall for six teens. Nicki and Brody moved the large stucco statue of Venus to the side, along with the goddess posse of wild horses pounding from the surf. That done, we moved to the front of the room. There was no altar here, but the stairs were thickly carpeted. The easier for collapsing on, I thought. I was a fan.