Wilde Card: Immortal Vegas, Book 2

by Jenn Stark

  “And compensation was your main goal?”

  “Compensation is always my main goal.” I lifted a finger. “But I don’t need your money, Armaeus. Not this time. I need your honesty. Tell me the truth: did you drive all those Connecteds and wannabes to Vegas to draw SANCTUS there?”

  His mood turned instantly stony, which was enough answer for me. I rolled to a sitting position, a little too grateful for this new surge of anger, burning off the last of my desire that refused to yield. “Why? Tell me why, when you’re all high and mighty in your noninterference, would you manipulate innocent people to toddle into your tailor-made trap?” I might have yelled that last bit, but Simon was smart enough not to come running.

  Armaeus scowled at me a long moment. When he spoke, his words were clipped. “SANCTUS has been building in power for decades, but over the past year, its activities have stepped up markedly.”

  “Yeah, well, so have the activities of the entire black market. Why do you think I’m so desperate for every job that comes my way?”

  “This is different. SANCTUS is poised for a strike, but there has been no reason for its sudden influx of power. The balance of magic is as it ever was. We could have gone another several months, another year without them striking.”

  “And that would have been bad, why?”

  He leveled his gaze at me. I held up my hands. “Oh no, no, no. You’re not laying this one on me.”

  “You agreed to remain in Vegas for the duration of your work with the High Priestess, but I needed you to understand the full extent of what you might accomplish. You are, arguably, a wild card in the war on magic. You don’t know your own abilities.”

  “I know my own abilities just fine, thanks. I find things. That’s what I do. That’s all I do.”

  “You find things, yes.” Armaeus had somehow edged closer to me. I remained seated on the bed, but he leaned forward, crowding against me in the small space. “But that’s not all that you do. Your abilities under the influence of the Pythene gas outstripped any of our expectations. And as Eshe intimated, the gas has dispersed from your system, yet your abilities remain.”

  “But they’re still a variation on finding stuff,” I hedged.

  “Your ability to manifest as an illusion convincing enough to handle a corporeal object and shoot men who believed they were being shot until the illusion lifted, is not a variation on ‘finding.’”

  I opened my mouth, shut it. Tried again. “Okay, you have me there. But I was in the middle of the entire Council on that excursion. Between you, the Devil, Eshe, and the Fool, something was bound to give.”

  “Perhaps. And perhaps something else will give, as you say, should you be tested further.”

  “Are you trying to piss me off here?” I glared at him. He was every inch the bronze god, gorgeously perfect despite the tattered bandages hanging off him, and every bit as impersonal. “Connecteds aren’t yours to ‘test,’ Armaeus, any more than they’re yours to use as bait. I don’t care how long you’ve been creeping around this world. They’re humans.”

  Another lifted brow. “I’m human.”

  “Kinda not really, no.” I crossed my arms. “And some of the people waiting back in Vegas for the apocalypse or solstice or whatever aren’t even skilled Connecteds. They’re right at the fringe, open to what’s out there without fully grasping it. Still others have abilities but no idea how to use them. They’re not prepared. They’re not combatants in this little war you’ve set up, they’re victims. I simply can’t understand how you could have justified summoning them this way.”

  His gaze didn’t waver, and after another beat, I connected the rest of the dots all on my own. “You bastard.”

  He shrugged. “You have a history of not leaving behind those who cannot fight for themselves.”

  “Yeah, well, guess who I do have a history of leaving behind—”

  A sharp rap came at the door, and without being asked, Simon opened the cabin and peered inside. His delighted smile turned disgusted when he saw my comparative state of dress to Armaeus’s undress. Then he noticed Armaeus’s chest, and his brows went up.

  “Glad you’re feeling better. Now if you two are done cat-fighting, we’re about to land. And despite some of us having immortal powers, the captain is adamant that we all be strapped in our seats for the event.” His gaze traveled between us. “Unless you’d rather be strapped into the bed?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Thank you for your willingness to meet at the station, Miss Wilde.”

  Brody’s words were clipped, formal, and I shrugged, glad I’d had the foresight to shower off the dirt and muck of Khemenu before dialing up Fuggeren. Brody had picked up instead, and had tersely explained that he’d been assigned to a special task force in charge of protecting the gold show. The Rarity had opened to great fanfare despite the attack at the gala, and all the pieces other than the scroll cases had been recovered within hours, spread around Vegas like Easter eggs.

  Distractions.

  Now I turned from the gleaming gold scroll cases and faced the two men. It was already three o’clock, but Fuggeren looked like he’d come out of the dry cleaners ten minutes ago, his skin and hair as perma-pressed as his suit. He smiled at me, and I could almost hear the money landing in my bank account. I’d impressed him. He was a good man to impress.

  “You had no difficulty reclaiming the pieces?” Fuggeren asked, earning him a scowl from Brody. “They appear to be barely handled.”

  “I didn’t. Thank you for the use of your transport and pilot.” We both knew I hadn’t used his resources, but with any luck, Brody didn’t. Fuggeren inclined his head.

  He was right too. The scroll cases had gotten more than a spit shine from Armaeus. They’d been transfused with enough Magician mojo to make them practically glow from the inside. Even the smallest one, the fake one, looked better than the original, though all of them were once again dormant. As if the nervous energy that had knocked me across the storage room at the airport had finally been burned off completely, and now they were napping.

  I narrowed my eyes on the cases. Had Armaeus done something more to them than he’d told me? I hadn’t had time to inspect them myself, nor had I any facility with the ancient script. How would I know?

  “Where’s Grigori Mantorov?” Brody’s words recalled my attention, and I smiled into his scowl. H knew he was being lied to, but not how, exactly.

  “I suspect he’s in Egypt,” I said. “I was lucky enough to intercept his courier en route to the temple site in El Ashmunein. Fortunately it’s a long drive from Hurghada Airport. I had ample time to catch up.”

  “He wasn’t with the cases?”

  “Not that I noticed.”

  Brody’s glare would have made me uncomfortable any other time, but I was still buzzed from my mile-high healing session with Armaeus, and not likely to come down anytime soon. I also needed to get the hell out of the station and back to Nikki. She’d been radio silent while I was out of town, but my phone had been blowing up since I’d landed, asking me to please get to the chapel already. I didn’t think she was about to propose.

  “Detective Rooks, I plan to make a commendation to the mayor regarding the conduct of you and your staff throughout this happily brief investigation.” Fuggeren’s words made Brody blink, and he refocused on the man. “Without your support, my property would not have been returned to me so quickly, and the Rarity Gold Show would not have gone on without a hitch. Further, we would have drawn undue attention and speculation to a city which does not deserve it for anything other than the most positive of reasons.”

  Brody didn’t lighten up. “I’ll need to file a report.”

  “And I’ll substantiate any appropriate version of the case that helps you the most,” Fuggeren said. His words were light, and surprisingly, Brody didn’t bristle. Instead he leaned back, considering the man.

  “You don’t need to do me any favors, Mr. Fuggeren.”

  “On the contrary,
I do.” Fuggeren smiled, and in that smile wasn’t simply a man worth billions, but the favored son of a long line of billionaires. “And you’ll find I always pay my debts. Miss Wilde.” He turned to me with a speculative gaze that noted every crease and wrinkle in my shirt, every scuff and bruise on my skin. It wasn’t a lascivious assessment, because Fuggeren wasn’t interested in me as a person. He was interested in what I could do for him. I was getting used to that kind of scrutiny these days, from mortal and immortal alike. “I hope to have the pleasure of working with you in the future.”

  “I look forward to it.” I stood, and the men followed suit. Fuggeren leaned in to shake my hand, then bent quickly toward me, as if to deliver one of those European kisses to the cheek that I was so terrible at reciprocating. When he neared my face though, his words were low. And definite.

  “I assume you have kept the smallest case for a good reason. I look forward to its return when you are finished.”

  Then he straightened, smiling again broadly. I grinned gamely back. As we both turned to the door, Brody gestured for me to remain. “I’ll need you for a moment more, Ms. Wilde.” His glance wasn’t lascivious either, more was the pity. I definitely preferred lasciviousness to officiousness in my cops.

  I loitered in the conference room while the two men made their good-byes. It hadn’t been an official meeting with suspects or persons of interest. It hadn’t been recorded. We weren’t in a room with a two-way mirror, either, which was probably a good thing. I always ended up staring at myself in those things.

  “Thanks for waiting, Sara.” For once, Brody didn’t stumble over my name, and I found myself a little wistful about that. It had become the one piece that linked us to the past, to a time when life maybe wasn’t a whole lot better, but it was a whole lot simpler.

  He gestured for me to sit. When I didn’t, he sighed. “We’re on the same side, remember?”

  “The same side?” I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice. Brody did that to a person. Especially to my person. “Then explain this charade to me.” I flicked my hand at the room around us. “You asked me to come down to the station to meet with you and Jarvis. I did. But you didn’t record the conversation, and you didn’t video it, from what I can see. It wasn’t observed. So why, exactly, are we doing this here? What do you have to gain from it?”

  His eyes betrayed his amusement. “You think I’m doing this for my personal gain?”

  “Well, it’s not like Fuggeren gives a shit about being in a police station.” I folded my arms. “While I make a habit of avoiding them.”

  “Yet here you are, being a good citizen, showing your cooperation with local law enforcement.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t patronize me, Brody.”

  “Then don’t be an idiot.” He’d taken a step closer. “I’ve taken a lot of heat for some of the crazy-ass shit that’s happened in this city over the past few days, and I expect to be taking a lot more. The least you can do, while you’re here anyway, which we both know isn’t for very long, is to keep me informed of the worst of what’s to come.”

  My gaze sharpened. He couldn’t mean what I—

  Brody’s irritated wave cut that thought off. “No, Sari—Sara. I don’t mean with your goddamned cards. You want to use those, that’s on your own time. I’m not mixing that into police business, not anymore. But you’ve got ears, you’ve got eyes. You’re in tight with Nikki Dawes, and she is a hell of a lot more than the natterclack she puts herself out to be.”

  Natterclack? Still, I nodded slowly, trying to follow Brody’s words. “You want me to be a snitch?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Sara, are you, or the people you hang out with, doing anything wrong?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Then why would I need you to snitch on them? I need you to tell me what’s coming that may harm them. God knows Dixie Quinn has been running to me for the last two years every time one of the Connected community gets so much as a hangnail. Surely you can provide information of a broader scope if you hear it.”

  “From what I understand, that’s not the real reason Dixie was running to you.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, of course, I regretted them. Brody’s brows shot up, his lips twitching into an almost-smile. “Why, Sara, I didn’t know you cared.”

  Which was bullshit, and we both knew it. But it also allowed him to take a step closer to me, until we were almost nose to nose. The heat of the man enveloped me in a way that was nothing like the kinetic, overpowering energy of the Magician. This was much more subtle, yet stronger too, a magnetic draw I couldn’t fight at this range any more than I could fight gravity.

  “So tell me, is that ‘caring’ the reason why you’re staying…or is it the reason why you’re determined to leave the city the first moment you can?”

  “I don’t want to have this conversation with you.”

  “It’s not a conversation, it’s a question.” He kept his body loose and easy, in marked contrast to mine. “It’d be helpful for me to understand exactly why you’re hanging around, and where things stand between us.”

  “Um, they don’t stand anywhere, Officer Brody—Detective Brooks,” I amended quickly. “We worked together ten years ago in a purely professional capacity.”

  He nodded, his face not betraying any reaction to the blush chasing over my face. “We did. But we’re not working together professionally now, are we?”

  Wait, what?

  Somehow he’d gotten closer to me. “I specifically don’t want to work ‘professionally’ with you, Sara. I want you to share information with me as a concerned citizen, yes. But you are nowhere near being a subject in this or any other case at this point, nor are you acting in any official police capacity. You can leave the city at any time. You probably should leave the city, in fact. The woman I met two weeks ago was planning on it, I know that for sure. The question is…will you or won’t you?” His eyes were the color of a winter day, clear and unworried, and despite the intensity of his glance, he didn’t seem jacked up, didn’t seem invested in the answer, didn’t seem—

  “Miss Wilde.”

  So not the time.

  “Why do you think I should leave the city?” I blurted the words before I could stop them, and it was Brody’s turn to smile, the little half smirk that he’d used so many times with so many people while I’d watched him, starry eyed with teen idol lust.

  “Doesn’t matter what I think. Will you or won’t you?”

  “No. I mean, yes. Yes.”

  “Sounds like you haven’t made up your mind on that.”

  “This isn’t a good time.”

  He shrugged. “I can wait.”

  The double meaning of his words dropped me into another rolling wave of confusion. He could wait. He had waited, sort of. Or at least he’d remembered me, from all those years ago. Remembered the girl I’d been or tried to be. I didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing. A bad thing, I was pretty sure.

  “There’s been an intriguing development, Miss Wilde.”

  Not. Now.

  “I said I could wait.”

  I blinked at Brody, my brain trying to balance the conversation in my mind with the one in front of me. Despite my sense that the Magician wasn’t pulling my chain, I shoved Armaeus out of my consciousness. Brody was a different story, though. He wasn’t using magic. Not any sort of magic I could ward against, anyway. And he was definitely pulling my chain. But I wasn’t going to react like a kid anymore to that. I was grown-up. Grown-ups did things differently than teenagers, I was almost sure of it.

  “It’s none of your business whether I stay or go,” I huffed, very adultlike.

  “Nope.”

  “So why do you want to know?”

  “Other than I might possibly lose a good CI?” He shrugged, his flinty blue eyes betraying nothing. “Call it professional curiosity. The kind of work you do, the kind of people you know—we’re going to run into each other, Sara. I like to know what
to expect.”

  My inner teen stared at him, gape-mouthed. I tried not to follow suit. He really…didn’t give a crap. “But you…” I blinked, my mind rushing through all the years, all the daydreams, all of the completely ridiculous fantasies I’d made up in my head about this man, this stupid cop who really had just been working with the snot-nosed kid from down the street, her value all in her cards and her visions and nothing…

  Well, not completely nothing. “You kissed me.” He had too. When he’d first seen me two weeks ago, seen me and known it was me, back in his life after ten years in the wind, he’d pulled me into his arms, and—

  Had that simply been an interrogation technique?

  Outrage blasted through me as a loud rap sounded at the door, which immediately opened. A uniformed cop stuck her head in. “Sorry to interrupt, Detective, I didn’t want to forward it to your voice mail.” She glanced down at her clipboard. “An Armaeus Bertrand is on the line for you.”

  “For him?” I blurted, and Brody’s head swiveled around to me in surprise, once again all cop.

  The woman nodded. “Says there’s been a development in the Rarity theft he wanted discuss with you. He was…” She straightened a little, blushing. “He was, ah, most insistent.”

  I stared at her. The woman had to be pushing sixty, and she was as pink and wide-eyed as a kid. Then again, Armaeus was pushing nine hundred. So to him she was a kid.

  “Thanks, Nancy,” Brody said, and the woman straightened further. Maybe surprised that Brody knew her name, maybe surprised that she had a name at this point. The Magician could do that. “Patch it through to my cell phone?”

  “Will do.” She left the room, and Brody turned more fully to face me.

  “What is your relationship with Armaeus Bertrand, exactly? Does he know you’re here? What’s his involvement?”

  I narrowed my eyes. It was a reasonable question. Armaeus had not been at the Rarity, and Brody wouldn’t know that he was connected to Kreios, necessarily. But at the moment I wasn’t inclined to do Brody any favors. “He’s a client. I work for him.” Brody’s mouth turned down, and I pushed it a little more. He wanted us to be all business? Fine. This was my business. “I find items of interest for him.”