by Jenn Stark
“Clearly you guys don’t club together much.”
Armaeus continued, his words even more clipped. “He’ll brief you on the details later today, I suspect, and give you additional information regarding your assignment at McCarron. He will not be accompanying you for that.”
“Fine.” A mission brief had never felt more like straight-out warfare. “So whatcha got on these scroll cases. Is there a file?”
“Of course.” He pulled a flash drive out of his jacket pocket and tossed it to me. “Everything you need to know about the Rarity job. As I mentioned, the current owner of the scroll cases is Jarvis Fuggeren. He will be easily recognizable and will doubtless be generous, attentive, and gregarious, but do not be disarmed. He is, most of all, very dangerous.”
I waved the drive. “Got it. Rich too, I expect?”
“Quite.”
“So, he doesn’t actually need the money, no matter how hot the market is.”
Armaeus inclined his head. “He does not.”
“And you say he’s not Connected?”
“Technically, that is unknown. His abilities may be cloaked by his possession of the artifacts. Or, he truly could be a collector of curiosities seeking to make the most viable sale possible for items of no intrinsic value to him, other than what they can fetch in a highly specific marketplace.”
“Fair enough. Does he know I’m coming to the party?”
“Merely as one guest among many.”
“And who else are you sending to play chaperone? Don’t say you either.”
His gaze shifted back to me. “It would disturb you to have me there?”
“Not at all. You, me, and Kreios? Total psycho sandwich.”
“An interesting experiment.” Still, Armaeus was cool as a cucumber mojito. “I’m sending you with the Fool.”
“Oh no. No, no, no. The last time that guy came within ten feet of me, I ended up bald-assed drunk in some dive cantina, convinced he was named Luscious and I was Miss Chiquita Banana. That wouldn’t be a good start to this little mission.”
Something flickered in Armaeus’s expression. Annoyance, irritation, defensiveness, I didn’t know. Didn’t much care either.
“Simon will accompany you to the airport site and get you in, ensuring that you breach all technology barriers,” he said. “It’s a simple enough request, Miss Wilde.”
The not so subtle reminder of who was the boss in this working arrangement shut me up. Sort of. “Fair enough. Have him fetch me whenever he’s ready.” I tucked the drive into my pocket. “Meanwhile, what do we have on SANCTUS? You really think they’re coming to Vegas?”
“All indications would say yes.” He held up a hand. “But we do not expect any sort of attack until solstice, later this week. Your work may well be done by then, which might significantly change the nature of a SANCTUS intervention.”
“Change it how?”
“That depends entirely on what you discover with the scroll cases.”
“And if they’re the real deal, we use them to implode SANCTUS.” I frowned. “What are we going to do, throw the things at them?”
“I think it would be better for you to focus on the task at hand first.”
“Trust me, I’ve got enough bandwidth for both now and later.”
“I have no doubt. But it’s not the future I am most curious about. Or the present, actually.” The Magician shifted toward me, and I blinked, refocusing on him. “To ensure the success of your work with the Council, there are things I wish to know about you, Miss Wilde. Things I must and will know.”
Careful, careful, careful. The sweat pooled between my shoulder blades, then traced a shivery trail down my back. “What kind of things?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I knew the incident he wanted to “explore” further. He’d been fascinated, not repulsed, by my blackout the night we’d planned to spend together. It had never happened to him before, and for someone pushing nine hundred, that was saying something. “Maybe I can tell you the answers and save you the trouble.”
As usual, however, Armaeus was not merely one step ahead of me, he was through the door and around the corner.
“I wish to see the day you left Memphis as a seventeen-year-old girl. Your memories, Miss Wilde. Not Detective Rooks’s. Your feelings. Your mind. If you would give me access—”
“What?” I gaped at him. I’d spent most of the past ten years trying to bury those memories. Seeing Brody here in Vegas had stirred up too many emotions, too many regrets. Letting Armaeus kick through that sandbox was not going to help anyone. “Why? Why would you possibly care?”
Derision dripped icily off the Magician’s words. “It is not a question of caring. The job of the Council—my job—is to ensure the balance of all magic. That means understanding the capabilities of the Connected, whether those stray to the dark or the light. I do not yet understand you. There is something about you I cannot place, a puzzle I have yet to solve. Until I do solve it, you remain a risk to magic as a whole.”
Irritation flared anew. “A risk? Me. I’m the one trying to help the Connected, in case you missed that detail. I’m hardly a risk.”
“Exactly my point. Your work is admirable, almost a crusade. I suspect the events of your last day in Memphis might shed some light on the reasons and motivations behind that crusade. That, in turn, will help me understand how you came to be, and how you fit into the larger picture.”
I blinked at him, overwhelmed with a rush of emotions that were neither welcome nor particularly impressive. Betrayal. Hurt. Incredible, unreasonable loneliness. I scowled, stuffing down my useless feelings. “I tell you what,” I said. “You break your rules, I’ll break mine. If I screw up, or if I need you to forego your precious balance in order to protect Connecteds from SANCTUS, and you do it, then you have the right to muck around in my head, fix what needs fixing, see what you need to see. Because nothing matters more to me than making sure the Connected don’t get wiped out by those freaks. Nothing.” He watched me impassively, and I willed my heart to stop thudding so hard. “But if that happens, you’ll get one shot. And one shot alone.”
“That’s all I will need—”
“I’m not finished yet. After this job closes, my brain and all its contents are off the table.” I jabbed my finger at him. “I mean off the table. Never again do you ask, never again do you try. I want your word.”
Armaeus regarded me with his cool golden eyes, always assessing, always weighing. The true Tarot Magician, with every element in play, all the possibilities in the universe, and no single future yet chosen.
He nodded.
“You have my word as bond, Miss Wilde.”
Chapter Five
The cab ride back to my temporary digs at the Palazzo Hotel had done little to soothe my nerves. Neither had the cheery waves of the front desk clerks, despite their apparent obliviousness to my train-wreck appearance. No doubt, they’d seen far worse.
Ah, Vegas. City of No Judgment.
But while Armaeus’s flash drive had supplied the basics of the assignment, I needed to understand more. The Rarity was coming here. To Vegas. For the first time in forever. And apparently on the docket were magical artifacts that hadn’t seen daylight since Anthony and Cleopatra had checked out each other’s asps. Surely that was causing a ripple in the Connected community.
There was one surefire way to find out. I peered at my laptop as the cab turned off the Strip, angling us toward Dixie Quinn’s Chapel of Everlasting Love in the Stars. I’d first set foot in the chapel a few weeks ago, but it had already become sort of a command base for me, second only to the Magician’s trans-dimensional ultra-highrise. From deep within her white stucco and kitsch shrine to star-blessed love, Vegas’s number one romance astrologer played mother hen to all the Connecteds in Vegas, whether they be wide-eyed newbs or shifty-souled veterans. She’d know if there was anyone talking about the Rarity, or anyone poking around I should watch out for.
On the laptop screen in front of me, Jar
vis Fuggeren smiled winningly for the camera.
Thirty-something, patrician, richer than God.
Check, check, and check.
“Why are you selling the scroll cases, Jarvis?” I muttered. “Who has you spooked?” Studying his smug face, it was hard to imagine anyone or anything making the Austrian financier nervous. Then again, his family had been wheeling and dealing with kings, emperors, and popes since the Middle Ages. That was a lot of time to cultivate enemies.
The cab bounced into a large parking lot, and I glanced up, then froze. “Um—go on past the chapel and idle in a space next to the tattoo shop, okay? Keep the meter running, I’ll pay.”
“Whatever you say.”
Ah, Vegas, City of Chill Cabbies.
I hunkered down in my seat, glad for the tinted windows, and took in the perfect Sin City chapel view: tortured topiaries, sun-blasted concrete, and a cheerful line of white plaster geese, all dressed up in wedding finery. Standing in front of those geese was the real show.
Today Dixie Quinn was dressed in another white cowgirl outfit, this one accented with a pink scarf and a bright pink cowboy hat that set off her tumble of perfect blonde curls. She was a tiny thing, barely taller than five feet even in her thigh-high boots, but the top of her hat almost came up to the chin of the man whose chest she was leaning against. She smiled up at him coyly, beseechingly, as if completely unaware that she was perched in the middle of a parking lot, being watched by God, the world, and a row of geese with marriage on their minds. From my angle, it kind of looked like marriage was on Dixie’s mind too.
The athletically built man with her was dressed in nondescript browns, his jacket open to reveal creased pants and a scuffed belt beneath his white button-down shirt. His hair was a little too long, his body a little too tense, his expression impossible to read at this distance. There was no denying that he wasn’t pushing Dixie away, though.
And she, maybe suddenly thinking the same thing, edged ever so much closer toward Detective Brody Rooks.
Great.
My phone chose that second to vibrate, and I stuck my hand in my hoodie pocket, fishing around while I kept my eyes glued on the Dynamic Duo. One person in the world had my private number, and I spoke his name as I fit the phone to my ear. “Father Jerome. You’re safe? Everything’s okay?”
“I should be the one asking that question, no?” As usual, Father Jerome’s rich voice filled a hole inside me I didn’t realize stayed empty most of the time. I’d known the old priest more than five years, and he was an immovable object in the dark maelstrom that howled ever louder through the Connected community with each passing month. “What is this second payment to my account, Sara? You only returned to the U.S. this morning.”
I smiled, warmed by the musical inflection of the old priest’s accent. “What can I say, I’m a lucky girl.”
“We would be so lucky to have you back in Paris, to stay longer this time than a morning, yes? It would be good for you to be here with us.”
“Why?” I frowned, focusing. What’s wrong?”
“Not wrong, Sara. Never wrong. It all is as it must be, good and bad.” Jerome’s words soothed my momentary panic, and I returned my gaze to the intent conversation of Dixie and Brody. I didn’t have anything against Dixie, I liked the woman. Really. And if she liked Brody, well, that was perfectly fine. I had no claims on the man.
Then Jerome’s words penetrated my brain. “We are getting reports of increased trafficking activity out of the Ukraine. The community is stirring with worry and fear, and there’s a sense of them being driven underground, of being hunted, that is becoming a part of the conversation no matter who is doing the talking. The house in Bencançon might not be enough. It might be the wrong idea altogether. The children may need several homes, in secret, where they can stay hidden.”
I frowned. “Hidden from what? SANCTUS or trophy hunters?”
“Both. There is a great agitation here, it worries me.” Jerome paused. “I did receive a visit from a young man who said he was a friend of yours. Max Bertrand?”
For the first time in days, something approaching happiness swelled inside me. “Max! Yes. Do you like him? Do you think he has promise?”
“I think he has great promise.” Jerome chuckled. “As to do I like him, it is difficult to say—he speaks almost nonstop. He has taken a job as a taxi driver in Paris to burn off his energy, he says. He seems very nervous about the prospect of having his abilities tested.”
“He’ll get over it.” I said the words lightly, but I wasn’t so sure. I’d encountered Max in Rome. He’d been the hired driver of my limo from the airport on my most recent assignment for the Council. That limo had been commissioned by Armaeus…whose last name, not coincidentally, was also Bertrand. I was still trying to wrap my head around the idea that Armaeus had a family of any kind, let alone one that had spawned new generations with Connected abilities. “Start him out with something easy, and go slow. He will come to his abilities in a rush, I suspect, but his mind may take some convincing.”
Jerome chuckled. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
“Oh, please. I’ve been throwing cards for a long time now. I know I’m good at it.”
The moment stretched between us, heavy with unsaid words.
“Jerome?” The old priest was a master at drawing out the abilities of the Connected children he safeguarded, nurturing and protecting those skills by equal turns. But I’d come to him already formed, so to speak. There was nothing new to discover.
My third eye began blinking rapidly. I swatted at it.
“Your gifts are a blessing,” Jerome finally said, as if he’d never paused. “I feel Max’s will be too. He’s eager to help with the children, to ensure their safety. But more of them arrive every day, Sara. It isn’t merely the refugees from the war that everyone can see that swell our cities and strike fear into our citizenry. It is the refugees from a war that no one knows is being waged.”
I nodded, though the old priest couldn’t see me. “You think you’ll be caught out?”
“Perhaps. We’re preparing to move. I’ll take a sabbatical from Saint-Germaine-des-Prés, and my absence from the city will help to reduce the attention.”
“A sabbatical? You can do that?”
“I’m expected to take one every five years.” Jerome’s laugh was wry. “The last I took one was in nineteen eighty-two, however, so I am a bit overdue. I’ll have to leave my belongings here, of course. I can’t have it appear that I’m doing anything but going on a short holiday.” He paused. “I pray a short trip is all it is.”
“And you’ll take your phone.”
“Of course. It’s the property of the church.”
“I don’t like it, Jerome. Where will you go?”
“Be at peace. Max will travel with me. As to where we are going, I am worried about this latest influx of children. Each new set is more terrorized, less able to communicate. Something is affecting them beyond my understanding. They are all passing through Poland, so that’s where we will start.”
“You and Max.”
“I’ve traveled before, Sara. I’m not some feeble old man.”
“No, no, you’re not the one I’m worried about.” A total lie, but Jerome let it pass. “Be careful, okay?” I glanced outside again. Dixie and Brody had moved into the lee of the building, in search of shade. Which put them out of sight.
My cue to ditch the car. Finally.
“I will, Sara,” Jerome said into my ear. “You’ll call within the next few days?”
“Sure, of course. Or soon, anyway.” I shut and stowed my laptop in my bag then fumbled for money, handing it forward to the cabbie, who grinned at me as if he knew I’d been avoiding Dixie and Brody. Well, he wasn’t wrong. Jerome and I said our good-byes, and I hauled myself out of the car.
It was hotter than the surface of the sun outside. Squinting to make sure the Wonder Twins weren’t in sight, I stabbed the phone into my pocket—missed, tried again. Th
e second time it made it, but something scraped against my fingers. As I pulled my hand out, a business card fluttered to the asphalt. I reached down and picked it up, barely avoiding the departing cab.
Grimm’s Antiques, it read in finely scrolled text. A small address in block lettering was beneath it.
Grimm’s Antiques? That hadn’t been on Armaeus’s thumb drive.
Still, I hadn’t been working with the Council this long not to recognize its games. If the Magician wanted me to go to Grimm’s, I’d go to Grimm’s.
Pocketing the card, I pushed into the foyer of the Chapel of Everlasting Love in the Stars. No one was there to greet me, but I figured out why quickly enough.
“Up on your toes, sweet cakes.” The sharp bark of Nikki Dawes’s voice rang out from the main wedding suite. “Stilettos aren’t for sissies, and this is the biggest day of your life. Unless you’re planning to dump the guy after Christmas, in which case you’ll definitely need those pumps again. So up on your toes.”
I entered the chapel and slid into a back pew, embracing the cool darkness.
At the front of the room, Nikki was holding court with three brides-to-be. Despite the drive-thru nature of this chapel, plenty of brides came through these doors without being under the influence of anything more than an excess of optimism. Nikki helped out at the chapel whenever Dixie had an astrology reading or a wedding planning session or, say, an impromptu meeting with a local detective.
As in all things, Nikki took her role of bridal guide seriously.
Today she’d paired her severe high-heeled black patent-leather boots with a tan minidress, red neck scarf, and black beret, the very picture of a retro Hollywood director. She’d found a bullhorn somewhere, and it sat mercifully silent by her canvas-backed high folding chair. The girls, who I guessed were the brides, given their pink tiaras that sprouted glitter-dusted tulle, watched Nikki with rapt attention. Nikki, for her part, sauntered up the center aisle with definite swagger, demonstrating how to properly work a set of platform bridal stilettos with enough hip swing to knock the moon out of its orbit.
