by Jenn Stark
“None. No use.” I dragged myself up in my chair and scowled around the room. “Someone saw me. Actually saw me. Multiple someones.” I turned to Armaeus. “Thanks for the Fool. He didn’t do jack shit.”
“He did what he was told, at least.”
Worry riddled through me at the low warning in his voice, and I blinked, trying to bring myself back to focus. There was something…important about his choice of words. Something critical.
Eshe sniffed. “You couldn’t have been seen. You weren’t physically there.”
That distracted me from the panic fluttering in my gut. “Yeah? Ask Mercault, if there’s anything left of him. Ask the boys in black that I interrupted in his office.” I scowled at Armaeus. “So, really, the Fool can teleport? You think someone might have told me?”
He just gazed back at me, like Darwin studying a barnacle. “Simon’s abilities are not yet fully tapped. He has not been long with the Council.”
“Well, that skill is kind of a big one.” I pulled myself up gingerly in my chair, then frowned down at my shin. It appeared unharmed. I wiggled it. It wiggled back appropriately. “I really was vapor that whole time. Like some sort of hologram.” I frowned. “Why did I feel pain?”
“Even without your Connected abilities, the mind of a mortal is extremely suggestible.” Kreios was regarding me with the same undisguised curiosity as Armaeus. I lifted my right hand to my left arm, palpating the skin. It felt …tender. Apparently, my mind was going to keep up that part of the illusion for a little while longer.
“You got what you needed, then?”
Eshe’s whine reached DEFCON 2. “I did not—”
“Yes. And your role of oracle is reaching the end of its usefulness, I’m afraid.” Armaeus’s words drowned out Eshe’s. “Simon has already begun removing the technology from Mercault’s home. The man himself has been secured.”
“And the bad guys?”
He flicked me a glance. “The intruders were no longer on the premises when our team arrived. Two of Mercault’s technoceutical cases were gone as well.”
That did catch me up short. “I was there. I shot them.”
He nodded. “And they shot you.”
“Except I shot a gun—not my gun. One I picked up.”
“Our agents found it. Under the bench by the grandfather clock, correct?”
I blinked at him, my brain going into a serious cramp. “I saw them.”
“I’m not disputing that an altercation occurred, that shots were fired and men were hit. I’m disputing the events that transpired immediately after you left the scene. The illusion lifted. The men realized they were restored but compromised.”
“Why didn’t they kill Mercault then? They should have. I would have.” Realization dawned. “Simon was there. Really there, not…whatever I was. And he let them go.”
“Simon can be very alarming if he chooses to be. When he provided the men with an opportunity to flee, they took it. They will have time later to consider the ramifications of their decisions.”
I blew out a breath. “Why do I get the feeling that I’m missing some extremely important information here?”
“You need to rest.”
“No.” Eshe’s fists crashed down on the table. “Her abilities are clearly cresting.”
“Yo, these aren’t my abilities. This is that blasted gas.”
“It is not the Pythene,” Eshe snapped. “That hasn’t been in your system for three days.”
I blinked at her, but she was already turning to Armaeus. “If you mean to take her from me, I get one last session out of her before she goes. You are not doing all that you should to bring the Council together. The Empress remains uncalled. The Emperor. Even the Her—”
“That’s enough, Eshe,” Armaeus snapped. “We do not need the full Council here to meet this challenge. Those that are on assignment elsewhere must be left to finish their tasks.”
She stared at him, disbelieving. “Assignment! I assure you Roxie Meadows is not ‘on assignment’ in between rounds of booze and boy toys.”
This had to be the same Roxie that Simon had mentioned. I mean…that name. Either way, she sounded like my people.
“Is she staying, um, above the Bellagio?” I offered. “I’d be happy to go fetch her.”
Armaeus’s voice was quelling. “Roxie Meadows should never have been accepted to the Council. Her abilities were artificially enhanced with technoceuticals at the time of her accession.”
“It was the sixties,” Kreios put in lazily. “Everyone’s abilities were.”
“And she adds to our overall strength,” Eshe insisted. “You know that we need her to present a united front. Light and dark, Armaeus, yin and yang. For the Council to be at full capacity, we cannot have the powers of the neutral and light alone. Not if Llyr is returning. We must recall everyone pledged to the Council.”
Llyr? I felt like I was swimming in a deep, rolling sea. Of Jell-O.
“Who’s Llyr?” The name rang in my ears, chasing along my nerves, familiar yet utterly foreign to me. No one paid attention to me. Armaeus looked more pissed than I’d ever seen him, the conflict on his face plain.
Whoa. Eshe was going to win the battle of the sexes with Armaeus, and get Roxie recalled to the Council. Whatever that meant. I was all for girl power, though, until Eshe spoke again.
“You’ve put out your call for the Council to be returned,” the High Priestess said, turning toward me. ”But you have not reached all who must be reached. Now it’s my turn.”
She lifted her hand gracefully—and I tipped back in my chair.
Chapter Thirteen
I woke up at the table, sprawled facedown on the smooth, cool surface. I wasn’t alone.
“You’re close—very close.” The voice was soft, almost soothing. If only it didn’t belong to the Wicked Witch of the Strip.
“Shut up, Eshe.” I slung myself back in the chair, staring blearily around the room. “Where’s the rest of them?”
“I said you would need privacy to recover.”
“And that doesn’t count you?”
Her smile was automatic, and it didn’t reach her eyes. She was watching me with that same curiosity I’d now witnessed on every Council member’s face, like I was the most fascinating thing to hit them in a millennia. These people clearly needed to get out more.
I lifted a weary hand, scrubbed my eyes. So far as I could tell, all of my skin still hung on my body, which was a bonus. Except… “What happened to me, that last time? I don’t remember any of it.”
“The deeper you go, the more immersed you are in the field, the less you can retain when you return. It will take time and practice to improve.”
“Yeah. No.” I scowled at her. “There won’t be any more ‘practice’ after the twins leave.”
“You have abilities beyond your understanding that you refuse to explore.”
“It’s the blasted gas—”
“We both know that’s not true.” She turned and removed the lid from a bowl at her side that I hadn’t noticed. Steam wafted up, and she shoved the thing toward me, pressing a spoon into my fingers. “Eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” I grumbled over my squalling stomach. I tried not to look at the swill directly, but obligingly dipped my spoon in it and took an experimental taste. “Fine.” The soup was made up of cream and chunks of meat and…something sketchy that wasn’t quite a vegetable. But it tasted better than anything I’d eaten in the last six months, so I wasn’t going to argue.
Eshe watched me eat for a few moments, then spoke again. “You cannot merely serve, Sara, to achieve your goals. You must also lead.”
I eyed her, too tired to do more than sneer. “Is this the self-help portion of the meal?”
“Armaeus will take you apart muscle by bone by sinew until he understands how you have the powers you do. He should not be more interested in exploring your true capabilities than you are.”
I focused on my soup again. “I’ve be
en busy.”
“You’ve been afraid.” She pulled back in full regal disdain. “But you can’t afford that fear if you would truly protect your community. Because Armaeus won’t, Sara. Nor will he protect you. You need to remember that.”
“Oh, like you will?” I scowled, not waiting for a response. “How old are you, anyway? You’re new to the Council, right? Or new-ish?”
Eshe’s smile could have frosted over Hell. “I am the oldest sitting Council member. Older even than Armaeus by a thousand years.”
I stared at her. “Whoa.”
She lifted a heavily lined brow. “You’re surprised?”
“I guess I would have thought age would’ve made you less of a bitch somehow.”
“And I would have thought youth would’ve done the same for you.” She leaned forward. “You must take responsibility for the care of the Connected yourself, Sara. And for the care of your own abilities.”
But fatigue was dragging me down again, drowning out the last of her words. I waved my spoon at her, but refused to respond. Not when she asked me more questions, not when she told me more lies. I eventually pushed the soup away and put my head back on the table.
At some point, she left.
At some point long after that, after night had fallen and morning came…so did I.
Now I held my hand to my eyes for meager shade as I moved through the crowd at the SLS Casino pool, the closest anyone was ever going to get to the once-grand Sahara. The Sahara Casino had been a bastion of Vegas Connected magic from the time it had opened in 1952 until its closing in 2011. Despite the implosion of the building and the subsequent construction of the SLS (or maybe because of it), the site remained one of the most magical places in Vegas. After all, there had to be some kind of magic involved to get a casino built in Vegas in the current real estate market. And by every indication, the SLS seemed to be doing well. It was ten a.m., and the bar was already going strong.
Resolutely moving forward, I kept my eyes pinned on Nikki. As usual, she was easy to spot. Today she sported a hot pink golf ensemble that had likely never seen an actual golf course, more was the pity. She lifted her drink and waved it at me, but her expression changed markedly the closer I got to her, until finally she simply gaped, openmouthed. She pushed her drink my way as I sank down onto the open stool beside her, and signaled the bartender for another.
“Girl, you look like death in a dog bowl.”
I shrugged off my hoodie and tied it around my waist. “Give it a rest, Nikki.”
“I’m just saying, I’ve seen armadillos less in need of a spa day. Consider it.” She squinted into the bright sun that bathed the bar area beyond our shadowy oasis. “We’ve gotten in another fifty Connected overnight. High rollers this time, keeping to themselves. Not this crew.” She shook her head. “Dixie can handle the lookie-loos, keep them corralled and safe. They trust her. This new group, however, they’re going to be trouble.”
I sipped my drink, wincing at the sting. “Trouble how? I thought this was some kind of big solstice meet-up. Is this new group focused on the Rarity?”
“Not so’s you’d notice. Instead, the visions motif keeps presenting itself, in both the higher-level crowd and some of the scrubs. And now that we’ve got people talking, the visions are starting to match up in one critical way: a storm from the east. Apparently, the apocalypse is coming to Vegas.”
I slanted her a glance. “Have you, um, seen anything?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really see the future so much. I see the present that others can’t see, or aren’t willing to talk about.”
“That’s handy.”
“It has its moments. Proving what I see can still be a bitch, however.” She slid her gaze toward me. “I will tell you what, though. Your present is no picnic.”
I stiffened. It hurt. “What do you mean?”
“I mean the fact that you look worse every time I see you. Paler, sicker, closer to dead. At first I figured you were just unhappy with being in Vegas, but it’s more than that. The Council is sucking you dry. They may be hotties on speed, but they’re not good for you, dollface.”
I shrugged. “They pay.”
“Not enough.” She rested her elbows on the bar. “I can’t see what you see, you know. I can’t hear what you’re saying. I can only see you. The you that you don’t tell people about, the you that you maybe don’t know either. The closer I get to you, the more time we spend together, the more I can see of your location, your circumstances, your physical self.”
“And you saw…”
“You passed out in a chair, mostly, your mouth moving a mile a minute, clearly in distress, in pain. Sweat pouring off you, but Armaeus, Kreios, Eshe—none of them touch you. They don’t really get near, other than Eshe. She holds out her hands over you like you’re some kind of fire she’s warming herself by. Kind of creepy. Otherwise, they argue a lot. They don’t make a move toward you until you start to convulse. Then they pull you out of your trance, some times more gently than others.”
She scowled, and I remembered the last time. “Kreios slapped me.”
“Not at first he didn’t. He shook you, he lifted you, he did everything but make out with you… Though he honestly should have tried that, because, my God, girl. That mouth.” She sighed, then soldiered on. “His slap came after you started to scream.”
I halted my glass mid-lift. “Scream?”
“That’s what it looked like without the sound turned up.” She regarded me stonily. “You need to tell me what’s going on, sugar bun. I’m not going to be able to help you if I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I don’t think I fully know. I thought I did. But now…”
Nikki grimaced, scanning the pool show. “Oh, freaking fantastic. No wonder Dixie wore that suit.”
I peered into the sunlight. I was rocking the same tank, hoodie and leggings I’d had on the day before. Dixie Quinn, however, was making full use of the pool’s dress code. Standing in waist-high water, she bounced up and down energetically, her barely there hot-pink swimsuit gamely trying to hang on. She waved at a man standing at the edge of the pool, a man who looked impossibly out of place in his rumpled brown suit.
I closed my eyes. “I don’t have time for him today.”
“Doesn’t seem like he’s after you.” Nikki’s voice betrayed her curiosity. “He really is focused on Dix, but not for the reason I bet she thinks.”
As we watched, Dixie clambered out of the pool, daintily accepting a towel that she used to blot dry…her face. The rest of her shimmered in water-soaked perfection as she beamed up at Brody. He pointed our way, the only strip of shade in sight, and I groaned.
“Suck it up, Buttercup. It might be good to hear what he wants. Dixie has been after him to take an interest in the Connected community for the past couple of years. Maybe he finally has.”
“He doesn’t look happy about it.”
And he didn’t. In fact, as Dixie and Brody approached, he looked distinctly pissed off. He recognized Nikki first; then his gaze slid to me. If he shared Nikki’s concern for my appearance, he didn’t betray it. “Ladies,” he said gruffly. I kept my face neutral, and Dixie’s watchful expression eased into a sunny smile.
“We’ll just be a jiff, won’t we, Detective Rooks?” she asked, rubbing his biceps with her long, manicured fingers.
He grunted again, and they moved down to the end of the bar. Nikki’s eyes were back on me, and I’d had about enough of that.
“How long were you a cop?”
She blinked, then smiled wryly. “Don’t think interrogating me about the bad old days is going to get you off the hook. That was a long time ago.” She flapped a hand in front of her defiant D-cups. “Before the change.”
“Did they know?”
“They knew enough to get me kicked off the force.” She shrugged at my wince. “I was lucky, though. Back then, I got lumped into a slightly different class than today’s more enlightened naming conventions, but it w
as still sexual harassment, and it was still Chicago. And I was still a loudmouth. The lawsuit paid for the work I wanted done, and the rest sort of played out the way it needed to.”
“And now? You ever go back there?”
“To Chicago? Nah.” She took another swig of her drink. “You ever head back to Memphis?”
I snorted. “That would be no.”
“I was serious when I said I’d Googled you, you know. That Psychic Teen Sariah stuff was pretty cool. You were good at it.”
“Not good enough, often enough. And not good at all, in the end.”
“Yeah, well.” She rolled her glass in her hand but didn’t wait long for the follow-up. “You ever figure out who killed your mom?”
The question was an honest one, a basic one, but it hit me unexpectedly hard. My throat closed up, and I shook my head, forcing the surge of emotion down. “Not yet. Didn’t look for a long time, and then, once I could—didn’t seem too smart.”
“And now?”
“Jobs keep me busy. My work has problems enough without seeking out trouble.” Her silence went on a little too long, and I glanced at her. “What?”
“Nothing, maybe.” She shrugged, her eyes fixed on Brody and Dixie. “Seems to me if you’ve got the big bad Council on your ass twenty four-seven, you might as well get some benefit out of it. Surely they can find shit out about your mom that you couldn’t. I mean, come on. You said the Fool was some sort of hackster genius. Couldn’t he break into the police records?”
“What would be the point?” I took a long slug of my drink, trying to understand the panic flaring through me. My mother’s death had been a long time ago. Ancient history. “Brody said he never found anything.”
“And I’m sure Brody, being a good cop, has never ever lied in the course of duty in his life.” Nikki waved off my scowl. “All I’m saying is it’s a possibility. Something to check out in between errands you’re running for the Council or whoever else you have on the line right now. You could always ask Simon, see if it’s something he’d be interested in.”
I thought of the Fool and his eyes alight with wonder at the prospect of breaking into Mercault’s tech. “He’d probably do it just to see if he could.”
