by SM Reine
“Yes,” she said.
Dana straightened, squinting through the lights at the semis. “I want to see.”
Officer Jeffreys threw open the trailer. It was stacked with pallets destined for a department store, fitting into it as tightly as a wall of Lego bricks.
She climbed up to look around. The mustachioed cop hung out on the pavement, patting his pockets.
“Mind if I smoke?” he asked.
“As long as you don’t try to set me on fire,” Dana said. Full-blooded vampires were flammable. They could look at a lighter and go up in flames, pretty much. A blood virgin didn’t catch as easily, but it was still in her best interests to keep away from cops with open fire.
“Never mind,” he said. “Looks like I don’t have a light.”
She snorted. “Here.” Dana tossed a Zippo at him.
Officer Jeffreys lit up. He offered the filter end to Dana. “Want some?”
“I don’t smoke nothing.” And it looked like he had the good stuff—a blunt of mixed tobacco and cannabis. Smelled like skunks. Officer Jeffreys was a man of taste. He was gonna get lung cancer, but damn if he wouldn’t go out enjoying that cancer.
“Why do you have a lighter if you’re not a smoker?” he asked, tossing the Zippo back.
She rolled it over in her fingers. The side was marked with a worn American flag—the old flag from before the North American Union, not the newer one with the crescent moon on it. She’d found the Zippo in a box of her dad’s old things. “I like setting fire to vampires.”
“Oh. Okay.” He looked disarmed…but intrigued. “Tell me more about draugr. Are they like you? Do they have the fangs? Do they catch fire?”
Her skin crawled at having someone ask if a vampire was “like her.” Dana tried to decide if correcting his dumb ass was worth the effort.
Yeah, it was worth it.
“No vampire is like me,” Dana said.
“What’s the difference?” he asked.
“I don’t kill humans for food. Never will. I swore my life to protecting humanity from preternatural threats, especially the vampire ones.”
“But you are a vampire now.”
“I’m halfway there,” Dana said. “Which means I’m halfway to human too.” If Lincoln and Brianna managed to work out the cure in time, maybe she’d get to backtrack. Maybe she’d feel her heart beat again.
Either way, she’d never be like other vampires.
She turned to search the contents of the cargo container.
“What’s it like, changing into one of them?” Jeffreys asked.
Dana’s acute vision tracked over the floor of the trailer. If she’d been human, it would have been too dark for her to make out any details. But she could see faint lines of dirt where other crates had stood. “It’s hell.” Forced to sleep in a tomb so she’d be safe, dreaming of fountaining blood, loathed by her wife.
“Are you getting stronger? Faster?”
He was too pushy for her tastes. Officer Jeffreys had never fangirled over Dana’s presence the way some cops did, so she didn’t mind working with him. But if she wanted to divulge her life’s details, she’d go see Charmaine’s therapist.
“I’m dying.” Dana poked around boxes that had slid during shipping. “It’s like I’ve been dying for weeks. I don’t breathe or bleed. You wanna chat about postmortem constipation too, or is that personal enough for you?”
“Hey! Dana!”
She turned. Over Officer Jeffreys’s head, she spotted Brianna waddling at top-speed in her direction. She’d probably been heading for Charmaine, but the chief was currently absorbed in a cell phone conversation. Someone like Mayor Hekekia was chewing her out. That left nobody for Brianna to annoy but Dana.
“What’s up?” she asked, reaching down a hand to haul Brianna into the truck bed. The witch’s wrist pulse beat under Dana’s fingers. Dana dropped Brianna’s hand as soon as she had her footing.
“Well, Greenville Lights got cancelled,” Brianna said, panting from the effort of jogging across the parking lot. “No season two.”
Dana felt actual dismay, and it was such a petty form of dismay that she cherished it. “But the writing on that show was fucking pristine!”
“I know, but that network cancels all the good shows. What can you do?”
“You didn’t come here to tell me about that.” Although Dana was very upset about losing her favorite new TV show of the spring season. She’d watched every single episode with Brianna, Anthony, and Penny. They’d had popcorn parties at the Lodge, for fuck’s sake.
“I thought I’d start with the less-terrible news to ease you into the actual bad news,” Brianna said. “Charmaine is on the phone with Secretary Friederling of the OPA.”
“They’re talking the vigilante license revocation?”
“And the daylighting.” She sighed, rubbing her hands over her face. “They’re saying that the daylight-only status of Vegas will be maintained for six months.”
Dana sank down to sit on the edge of a box. She stared blankly at the wall.
Six months of daylighting. Six months where any vampire in Clark County wouldn’t be able to step outside without ultra-concentrated UV rays burning them into dust. The OPA would probably be extra thorough and clean out the sewers, too. Nowhere would be safe.
Even blood virgins would be killed by that.
“Anthony found a place in Tahoe that looks nice,” Brianna said. “Monthly rates are decent, and beach access is outstanding.” She showed her phone screen to Dana. It displayed rental information for an adorable alpine cottage, which looked ordinary except for a single detail: it had no windows. “We’re thinking you can use it as base to cover the Reno territory until shit dies down in Vegas.”
Dana shoved the phone away. “No fucking way. I’m not running. Vegas is home.”
“I told Anthony you wouldn’t be interested, but…” Brianna glared at Dana, clutching her phone so tightly that her knuckles were white. “You pulled Anthony out of a mine so he wouldn’t die. Why won’t you let him save you too?”
Dana opened her mouth to reply.
But a small shape caught her attention out the corner of her eye.
“What’s that?” she asked, leaping to her feet.
Brianna groaned and rolled her eyes.
Dana climbed behind a stack of crates. Carlitos Oborsky must have braked hard, because it looked like they’d slid a few inches despite being tethered. A small cardboard box, heavily duct taped around its circumference, seemed to have tumbled behind the crates.
She picked it up. Broke the tape sealing it shut.
“What’s this look like to you?” Dana asked, sliding its heavy contents into her palm.
Brianna plucked the bar out of her hand. “This looks like pure iron,” she said, lifting it into the floodlights. “Just like you found in the suitcase from the hookah lounge.”
Dana popped up onto her toes, peering over Brianna’s head to look for Officer Jeffreys. He’d been distracted by someone who worked for the truck stop.
“Take these,” she said, shoving the iron bars into Brianna’s pockets.
“Dana. Stop it. That’s illegal.”
“Watch how much I care,” she said.
And she jumped out of the shipping container to beeline for her truck.
“The shipping company is called Hardwick Transport Services,” Brianna announced, pressing a button on her remote so the projector would display a company stock profile. “Guess who they’re connected with.”
“The Babysitters’ Club?” Dana suggested.
“Yes,” Brianna said. “How did you know? My God. You’ve got the brilliant detective mind of Sherlock Holmes, you enormously smug jerk.”
They were having a meeting at the Hunting Lodge. It was getting dangerously close to dawn, since driving around the county had a way of soaking up what little nighttime southern Nevada had in the summer. Dana hadn’t had a choice but to return to base before daylight was chasing her ass.
At that hour of morning, the only associates around were Brianna and Anthony. Everyone else was either on patrol or enjoying a night off. The Lodge was silent except for Brianna’s music. She’d been playing the same Billy Idol album on repeat for the last two weeks.
For the moment, White Wedding Part 1 was backing Brianna’s slideshow of information. It was pretty awesome, actually. Not entirely appropriate, but awesome.
“So the shipment was being transported for Hardwick Research.” Anthony’s feet were propped up on the meeting table, and he leaned back in his chair so hard that it was nearly flat. He’d pulled a wool blanket over himself like he was planning to fall asleep there. “I almost get killed in a Hardwick mine. A Hardwick researcher is kidnapped and killed by the Paradisos. Now the Hardwicks are shuffling illegal quantities of iron around the area.”
“You’re close.” Brianna switched to the next slide. She stood in front of it so that half of the fact sheet was projected onto her frilly old lady shirt. “These quantities of iron aren’t illegal when earmarked for research. Also, Carlitos Oborsky wasn’t supposed to pass through southern Nevada. He was taking this stuff to Oakland via I-80.”
“Huge fucking detour,” Dana said. I-80 wasn’t anywhere near Vegas.
“Dana,” Brianna admonished. She pointed at a jar sitting on a shelf. There was a piece of paper taped to its side with “Swear Jar” written on the side in permanent marker.
“No,” Dana said.
“Rules are rules,” Anthony said.
Dana rolled her eyes, stuck a hand in her pockets, pulled out some cash. “Fine.” She stuck the money in the jar’s lid. The Swear Jar was almost completely full; even though Anthony had been fined by cops recently, depleting their reserves, there was no shortage of curse words at the Hunting Lodge.
“You’re right that I-80 is nowhere near us,” Brianna said once she was satisfied by Dana’s contribution. “Luckily I managed to get a hold of a Hardwick representative, and she hooked me up with Pierce Hardwick.”
“The Pierce Hardwick?” Anthony asked. “That’s like sitting down to chat with Edison.”
“Edison’s dead, nimrod,” Dana said.
“Edison and a necrocognitive, then.” He stuck his tongue out at her.
She stuck her tongue out in response.
“Pierce and I had a nice chat,” Brianna said with airy superiority. She was real fucking smug about getting to talk to one of the greatest minds of their era, like it made her so much better than the adults sticking their tongues out at each other.
“Pierce.” Dana mimicked her tone nasally, swooning with a hand on her brow. “Pierce and I had tea. Pierce and I are in love.”
Anthony kicked her in the knee. “Be nice.”
Brianna’s whole face had turned an unflattering shade of crimson. “Pierce thinks it’s likely that the iron that Lucifer was selling to the Paradisos was also stolen from a Hardwick facility. They had a huge security breach recently.”
“And that’s how you end up with microbiologists and bars of iron getting stolen,” Dana said.
“Exactly,” Brianna said. “Get this: Pierce also said that a third lab was robbed. They lost iron there too. It was in Helena.”
“Helena? Home of airship manufacturing in America?” Anthony asked. “Does that mean that the victim at the airship dock got killed because she spotted smugglers?”
“It seems likely. The Hardwicks have been generous with info, but not as generous as we need. They’re holding back from me. I bet Lincoln can get more, so I asked him to drop Pierce a phone call too.”
“We don’t need anything else from them.” Dana tallied the points on her fingers one at a time. “We caught Paradisos vamps buying iron from Lucifer. Two mortals have been murdered adjacent to more iron smuggling, too. The Paradisos are killing people to get contraband. Case closed. Let’s take it to Charmaine.”
“Hold your hell-hounds, McIntyre.” Anthony dropped his feet from the table and sat up. “What’s the motive? Iron’s only illegal because of the effect that it has on sidhe. There aren’t sidhe in Vegas.”
Okay, so that was kind of a huge hole in Dana’s case.
“And it looked like Carlitos Oborsky was killed by another valkyrie feather blade,” Dana admitted grudgingly.
Anthony frowned. “I can have Linc check on the one you fetched.”
“No point. It must have been a different one.” She sighed, folding her arms tightly across her chest. “Before I killed those draugr, they told me that someone at Judex gave them the sword. Said it was a present for being high rollers or whatever.”
“How interesting,” Brianna said. “Sounds like they could have testified against the Paradisos if you hadn’t killed them without warrants.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Dana said.
Brianna did shut up. She also pointed silently at the Swear Jar.
Dana hurled a fistful of change at it.
“It’s safe to connect the swords to the Paradisos, but that doesn’t fix our lack of motive. I can’t imagine they’re planning to invade the Middle Worlds.” Brianna turned off the projector and set the remote on top of it. Without its bright white light, the room was comfortably dim. The tan walls didn’t hurt Dana’s sensitive eyes so much. “Even if the Paradisos took all their vampires across the ley lines, they couldn’t drop a single Court.”
“They’re doing something bad with the iron,” Dana said. “The Paradisos have a plan.”
“We don’t know that. We can’t prove it.”
“Maybe I can.” The small voice came from the doorway.
Dana leaped to her feet, whirling to see…
Nissa Royal.
The petite vampire was dressed for work. She wore her Judex employee shirt, a modest skirt that fell below the knees, and opaque tights. Dana had a gun pointed at her before she even realized that Nissa’s hands were lifted in a gesture of surrender. “How the fuck did you get in here?” Dana asked.
Nissa’s eyes flitted between each of the people in the room. Anthony had a hand on a stake. Brianna’s fingers were poised to cast the hetânâ. Nissa was either brave or stupid for walking into that room.
“I just walked in,” she said. “Through the front door. Is that weird?”
Dana glanced over her shoulder. “Brianna?”
“I modified the anti-bloodless wards to make sure they wouldn’t hurt you.” Brianna looked even more embarrassed than when Dana had been picking on her reverence for Pierce Hardwick. “I might have poked a few big holes.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“You wouldn’t be able to work here if I hadn’t,” Brianna said.
Nissa lifted her hands an inch higher. “I don’t want to make trouble. I only came because I have more information that I thought you might want, Dana.”
Brianna said, “Dana.” She mimicked Dana’s nasally, teasing tone. “I have information, Dana. Let’s go on a date, Dana.”
“Chill,” Anthony said sharply.
Dana didn’t look at her compatriots. Even if Dana hadn’t promised Tormid that she’d wipe Nissa off the face of the Earth, Nissa was a vampire, so Dana should have killed her weeks earlier. Instead she was wandering into the Hunting Lodge like she belonged.
She didn’t belong.
“What information?” Dana asked. Her gun didn’t waver. She kept it aimed right between Nissa’s eyeballs.
“I was looking at the calendar of events for the Paradisos, and I saw a user-submitted event tomorrow night that shouldn’t have—”
“Hold up,” Brianna said. “The Paradisos have a shared calendar?”
Nissa looked at her like she was speaking Sumerian. “Uh, yeah. How else would we organize everything?”
“But calendars are so easy to hack,” the witch said.
“You haven’t met our firewalls,” Nissa said.
That was not true. Penny had spent a lot of time banging her head against the Paradisos firewalls, trying to penetrate their
network. They’d broken into the former master’s systems and Achlys had paid for the security hole with her life. Everything else had since been upgraded. Quantum encryption made further penetration just this side of impossible.
Knowing that the Paradisos had a unified calendar organizing their evil was simultaneously mouth-watering and frustrating.
“Anyway, there’s an incoming shipment of something—maybe lethe? I’m not sure,” Nissa said. “The details on the calendar are incomplete. The whole entry looked weird, as I said.”
Dana glanced at Anthony. He shrugged.
“I thought you’d want to know,” the vampire finished, somewhat pathetically. “Because lethe is so destructive.”
All right, so Dana did want to know. But… “At the moment, we’re focusing on the import of iron into the region. Purified bars. Medical grade.”
Nissa snapped her fingers. “I bet that’s what it is. We usually don’t log lethe shipments like this—in the calendar, that is. We’ve got a steady flow from a local distributor, so it’s too routine.”
“That makes it so much more legal to have demon drugs around,” Anthony said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something else, like iron,” Nissa said. She acted like she hadn’t heard Anthony at all. She only had eyes for Dana.
Dana only had eyes for Nissa.
Access to a calendar. Knowledge of incoming shipments.
Maybe there was a benefit to keeping a contact within the Paradisos alive.
“Could it be a shipment of weapons?” Dana asked. “For instance, more valkyrie swords?”
Nissa looked confused. “Like the blade the draugr had?”
“They said they got it from Judex. I assume that means Mohinder. If he’s giving them out to visitors, then he must be distributing them for a reason. Maybe to lead us off his trail.”
“The draugr were lying about that,” she said. “I run Judex. I’d know if we were giving free swords out at the same time as credit for the slots.”
Unless Mohinder knew that Nissa was spilling information behind his back. If he caught on to the fact she wasn’t the most loyal fledgling, it’d be easy for a master of his stature to hide things from her.
