by SM Reine
Anthony was studying Dana’s face with calculating interest. He wasn’t as skeptical as Brianna or as worried as Penny. If she said that this implicated Mohinder, he’d trust it. “Judex is technically owned by the Paradisos as a whole. It was the property of Achlys.”
“Until she died and left everything to…” Dana flipped the projection to the next slide. It was paperwork with the OPA seal at the bottom, right next to a notary’s signature. That paperwork was public record. “Mohinder.”
It should have been a solid confirmation of his complicity.
But the rest of the Hunting Club still stared at her blankly.
“So there’s the connection,” Dana said slowly, like she was trying to remind them of the alphabet’s order, or how to add together numbers under ten. “Before she died, Achlys bought unobtainium as Gaslight Corp with the intent to manufacture a lot of Garlic Shots.”
“Problem.” Penny raised a hand like she was in class. “It doesn’t take iron and silver to make Garlic Shots. And okay, Gaslight Corp has unobtainium. Is that illegal?”
“No, but Nissa said something that got me thinking. Tormid picked up the silver because silver’s the only thing that can kill shifters. He doesn’t want it on the local black market. Likewise, Garlic Shots kill vampires. Mohinder knows that—it’s how his master just died. Do you think he wants anyone to possess the ability to make Garlic Shots?”
“It’s a stretch.” Anthony was looking more thoughtful than angry now, and Dana knew she was turning him to her side. He was always the first to agree with her.
“Let’s take it to the next level,” Dana said. “Mohinder’s taken control of Vegas. New leadership, new policies. Let’s say he wanted unobtainium—a key ingredient in Garlic Shots—as well as silver and iron. What could the new master of a murder do with all that?”
“Kill every preternatural in Vegas,” he said.
“Especially if he has access to the city’s water supply.” She pressed one more button. A lacework of red and blue lines overlaid the satellite map of Las Vegas. “This is the system in the area. The Gaslight Corp tanks are at this juncture. I think they’re going to flood the system with silver and iron to make sure Vegas is only hospitable to vampires.”
“You mean like a three-block radius of Vegas,” Brianna said.
“It’s enough to poison Tormid’s pack. Silver poisoned shifters will go crazy, kill tons of mundanes,” Dana said. “We’ve gotta kill Mohinder first. Let’s get our warrant against him.”
Anthony sighed. “We can try.”
“No.” Penny shot to her feet, upending her bunny slippers. Her fists were clenched at her sides. “There was video of Achlys hurting humans, so it was easy to get a warrant. We barely have a case against Mohinder. If we apply for a warrant to kill him with literally no proof, then Vegas blows up. You guys haven’t forgotten what Charmaine is going to do to us, have you?”
“You mean what the OPA will do to us,” Brianna said. She was still grinning that crazy witch grin. It totally failed at being friendly and reassuring. “It’s not like we’ll lose our livelihoods just by asking for permission to kill Las Vegas’s favorite mayoral candidate!”
“We need solid evidence to go after Mohinder.” Penny leaned on the table, and she made eye contact with Dana. It was like getting lost in pools of molten copper. “I want bad vampires dead as much as you do. If Mohinder’s out to kill Tormid’s pack, then he’s bad. I won’t argue that.”
“The pack’s not the greatest either,” Anthony said.
“The pack’s full of assholes, but it’s not illegal to be an asshole,” Dana said. “I’d have to kill everyone in the city if it were. That said, Mohinder will only start with Tormid’s pack. Gods only know where other Gaslight Corp pumps might be located. We need a warrant.”
“Proof first,” Penny said. “I believe in you. You’ve never steered us wrong before, Dana. But we have to be careful. So careful. Do you want to shut down the Hunting Club?”
An organization that served as her father’s legacy.
Once Dana died, childless and unmarried, the club would be her dad’s only legacy.
Dana caught herself nodding. “Fine. You’re right.” Both Penny and Anthony exhaled. They relaxed. Until Dana marched for the door.
“Where are you going?” Anthony asked, leaping in her path.
“As you know, I’ve been working with Nissa Royal of the Paradisos,” Dana said. “I just saved her life. She owes me a favor.”
Penny looked stricken. “You saved her?”
“Yes, I saved a vampire. Get the fuck over it.”
Her eyebrows drooped. “That’s not why I was asking,” she mumbled. Her cheeks had turned that ruddy color they got when she was blushing. Was she jealous? Should Dana have felt so smug about the idea?
“Nissa’s gonna be keen to pay me back if she’s smart,” Dana went on. “She’s still in denial that her sire is a bad guy, but she should be turning around now that I’ve sent her looking for evidence. She can get us proof that Mohinder is the one behind the murders, the illicit goods, everything. Bet he’s got a lot more dirt than that.”
“Listen to what you just said.” Brianna was speaking through her teeth. “Mohinder sired her. Will a vampire turn on her sire? It’d be like if you turned your mom over to an executioner.”
“I watched Nissa kill my sire,” Dana said. “She’s tough enough to surprise all of you.”
Penny left the room without making eye contact.
In her absence, everything was silent.
After a moment, Anthony said, “Look, it’s daylight. You gotta hole up. I’ll find Nissa at Judex.” He rubbed a hand over his sweaty face. “Maybe by the time you wake up, we’ll have a warrant to kill Mohinder.”
15
Even bundled up in blankets in a gargoyle’s arms, Nissa didn’t get back to her Judex office unscathed. When she sprawled in her chair, she spread her hands in front of her to look at the little blisters she’d earned through the weaving of the blanket. They seemed to form a constellation on her skin, starlight in the shape of a warrior-woman.
Cold metal kissed against Nissa’s throat.
“You’ve been gone a long time.” Mohinder’s voice was liquid danger dripping into her ear, and his finger-claws were so sharp that Nissa suspected she was getting cut even though he only rested them on her jugular.
She turned her head toward him so that her temple would rest against his chin. “Hey,” she said. “I hope I didn’t worry you.”
He was still for a moment, as if trying to decide if he wanted to eviscerate her or not. “Where have you been? You’ve been gone nights on end and haven’t left behind any word as to why.”
“I’ve been helping the Hunting Club.”
Her chair turned, swinging around so that she had to face Mohinder. He had flicked the fingers on his other hand to make it spin. He was so casual using his telekinetic powers, like his ability was no stranger than an extra limb, and Nissa wished that she could have wielded her empathy as casually.
Mohinder’s disappointment was distinctly un-homicidal. Not that he couldn’t or wouldn’t kill her; he just hadn’t reached that emotional level yet. “Why are you helping them?”
“Why not? We’re neighbors. This is our city together. We’re all allowed to be here.” The words flowed from her smoothly. She’d thought about what she would tell Mohinder for long enough.
“Sometimes I wonder if you’ve changed in ways I can’t tolerate,” he said. “Your fascination with Shawn was understandable in the context of your fledgling fascination with death, but this new thing…this Dana McIntyre… It’s not safe. I’ve warned you before that she’ll see all of us dead.”
Nissa leaned back in her chair so that he could see all of her, relatively uninjured and absolutely undead. “She hasn’t killed me yet, has she?” Nissa gave the kind of smile she imagined Mohinder would have given before killing a human. Someone who had wronged him. “Maybe she has a weakness tha
t only friends and neighbors get a chance to see.”
Mohinder smiled back. He so seldom smiled that it wasn’t a pleasant expression. “Interesting. You do keep changing, Nissa, and in ways that surprise me. Change isn’t inherently bad.”
“I don’t think so.” She reached up to take his hand.
He curled his dagger-tipped fingers around hers gently enough that they didn’t cut. Mohinder’s lips brushed over her knuckles, her fingertips, and she let her blistered palm rest against his chin. It was like crawling into one of the big cat habitats in Judex to pet the tiger’s face. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Mohinder bit her fingers off without warning. But for the moment, she was stroking an apex predator, and he seemed almost to purr at her touch.
“Your claims of neighborliness with the Hunting Club changes nothing about what’s to come, does it?” he asked.
“Not at all. Did you pick someone?” Nissa asked.
He slipped a piece of paper into her hand. “It’s time for her to leave the Paradisos. You’ll like this, I think.”
Nissa unfolded the paper. Her eyes widened when she read the name and location. “You’re right. I like it.”
He laughed, buttery smooth. “I’ve missed you,” Mohinder admitted. “You are my pride, Nissa. You’ll never know how much I sacrifice for you. The idea that you run wild where I can’t watch is concerning.”
“You’ve taught me as well as you can. I’m not helpless.”
“Not at all.”
An alarm chimed on Nissa’s computer. She swiveled in the chair to look.
Her secretary had sent a message up to her office. There was a man in the foyer of the Judex corporate offices—a human man. The surveillance photo showed a familiar face with a thin mustache and receding hairline.
“Anthony Morales,” Mohinder said.
Nissa stood, smoothing her work shirt down over her front. Her hands were still blistered so it hurt to touch anything. Pinpricks of pain flared at the contact, so she rubbed her hands down her shirt again, and again, savoring the sensation. “He’s probably following up on that research I did for Dana.”
“I’d like a chance to find out.”
“We can’t risk you now. I’ll send Anthony away and get back to you soon. Remember, Mohinder…we still have a lot of work to do.”
Her sire brushed the backs of his icy-cold claws over her shoulder. “That we do,” he agreed. He waved his hand so that the door to her office opened. “Speak to Morales. I’ll be waiting.”
Anthony didn’t have a problem hanging out in casinos owned by vampires. It was impossible to avoid it since Las Vegas didn’t have much by way of human ownership anymore. If you liked to gamble—which Anthony did, in moderation—and you lived in Nevada, then you were going to have to patronize vampire casinos. End of story.
The Paradisos were unlikely to fuss with someone giving them money. Gambling at a vampire casino was one of the safest activities you could do, even as a senior associate with the Hunting Club who was almost as recognizable as Mohinder.
Showing up at their corporate offices demanding to speak with upper management was a lot less safe, and much less comfortable.
Anthony shifted on his feet, unable to stop moving. He could feel the wooden stake wedged in his belt, but it offered no reassurance. The secretary watching him—some scrawny guy with a whining voice—was a crimson-eyed Paradisos vampire. The security guards he’d had to pass to get in here were vampires. Every dealer on the floor would be a vampire, too. And he was waiting to meet a vampire that Dana was treating like a friend.
That was the worst part of it. Anthony knew Dana about as well as anyone did. If Dana was working alongside a vampire, it wasn’t because she’d suddenly developed a new attitude about the species. It had something to do with her eventual self-destruction.
Nissa Royal was going to be a big factor in Dana McIntyre’s death if they weren’t careful. He could see it coming from a mile away.
But he was still hanging out at Judex, waiting to talk to the gun pointed at Dana McIntyre’s skull.
Nissa emerged from the door behind the desk. She was short and big-hipped with dainty ankles. The addition of her fluffy hair tied into a high ponytail gave Anthony the impression of a rutabaga. A rutabaga with fangs.
Dana would probably find the comparison hilarious. He filed it away for later.
“Anthony Morales,” Nissa said, offering a hand to shake.
He didn’t take it. “I’ve got a UV grenade and a wooden stake.”
She dropped her hand. “I thought you were coming for the information Dana requested. Not to threaten me.”
“Just offering full disclosure. I’m armed, but it’s a self-defense measure,” he said. Was Nissa staring at Anthony’s forehead instead of his eyes? It gave him the uncomfortable feeling that she was trying to read his thoughts. “I know that your sire owns Gaslight Corp, and that you guys are going to try to kill Tormid’s pack by poisoning their local water supply with silver.”
Nissa glanced over her shoulder at the door she’d come from. “Can you walk with me?”
“Sure.” Might as well. No matter where they were, Nissa could kill Anthony within seconds if she wanted to.
Nissa led him to a side hallway. She didn’t speak until they were far from the nasal secretary.
“You’re right. Mohinder owns a company called Gaslight Corp,” she said. “I’m not sure where you get the idea that he’s going to poison the water supply.”
“So you’re denying it?”
“Yes. Tormid threw me out of a tower. He’d have killed me today if Dana hadn’t saved my life. I wouldn’t mourn his death, but poisoning the water supply to take out a lone werewolf pack? The risks are far too high.”
“Okay. So how about the unobtainium? What’s Gaslight Corp doing with that?”
She blinked. “Holding on to it. Keeping it safe.”
It was taking a lot of self-control not to draw the stake just to make himself feel better. “You know that unobtainium is what Dana needs to finish making the cure, right? So why haven’t you told us? Why haven’t you told her?”
“I only just found out.” Nissa turned a corner, leading Anthony into a hallway that widened to reveal animal habitats. It was like being on the back side of an aquarium. All the stone facades faced the other direction, while the animals’ beds were on this side, enmeshed in densely planted jungle. “I asked Mohinder about the unobtainium, iron, and silver as soon as I got back here.”
“And he told you the truth?”
“I’m his fledgling. Of course he did.” She stopped walking alongside one of the huge glass walls, a rutabaga framed by dew-studded ferns. The lighting within the enclosure was the cool blue of artificial daylight. It made her look deader somehow, like a corpse someone had propped upright. “He doesn’t have the iron and silver. He does have the unobtainium. I believe he’s telling me the truth, especially because he’s told me who has bought the iron and silver. It’s our healer, Momoe Esquerer.”
“Your healer? A witch?” Anthony asked.
“She was acting on Achlys’s command postmortem,” Nissa said. “These were mechanisms put into place months ago to defend the Paradisos from attack. Maybe if they’d done this sooner, Shawn Wyn wouldn’t have managed to kill Achlys. She could have defended herself with iron.”
“If what you say is true, Momoe Esquerer is guilty of murdering people to steal these metals.”
“I know.” She wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her ribcage tightly. “Mohinder figured it out when I told him about the valkyrie blades. Do you know who used to be in prison with Vidya, the valkyrie with the AGC? Momoe. She got the feathers as a present.”
“And gave one of them to the draugr?”
“Probably a diversionary tactic,” Nissa said.
“Probably.”
“We can’t ask Momoe for motivations without tipping her off, so that’s probably as good as it gets. We’ve already notified the LVMPD that Mo
moe Esquerer is responsible for the murders. They’re on the way to seize her. Mohinder’s eager to obey the law. We all are. And I hope this gesture resolves the bad blood between us.”
Jesus, it was easy to see why Dana was such a sucker for this vampire. She basically looked like she was going to barf at any given moment. She’d never admit it, but Dana was a sucker for the weak ones, the people who needed help. Anthony had never seen a vampire look as weak as Nissa.
Nissa was still staring so fixedly at his forehead. Her hands started rubbing over her shoulders so hard that he thought she might rub the skin right off. “You’re afraid of me.”
Anthony blinked. “Uh, yeah. You’re a vampire. You can kill me.”
“Look into my eyes. See that I’m empty of blood.”
“No, yeah, that’s fine. I trust you.” Some vampires had mind powers that could only be activated with eye contact. He hadn’t heard that Nissa had such abilities, but it was better to be safe than a thrall.
“My point is that you have no reason to be so filled with…” Her nostrils flared as she inhaled, and her eyes shut halfway. “Fear. Such incredible fear. Gods, it hurts me, like a cramp in my stomach.”
“Try Maalox,” he suggested.
Her eyes popped open. “I don’t hurt people and I want to be a good neighbor to the Hunting Club. I’m willing to do so much for Dana.” She rested her hands on the glass behind her, fingers spread. She had no perspiration to make it fog.
“And, uh…what is it you’re willing to do, exactly?” Anthony hoped the answer wasn’t all gross and weird.
“Mohinder forbade making more samples of the cure—the Garlic Shots?—but I’m going to steal unobtainium for Dana.”
That was far from the result that Anthony had expected to get from this meeting. It kinda sounded too good to be true.
It probably was too good to be true.
A big cat emerged, parting the ferns with its head. It was a tiger with violet fur underneath its black stripes. Judex’s advertising claimed that their weirder animals were summoned from alternate dimensions, but Dana claimed that they were just normal animals with elaborate glamours that made them look more exotic.
