Wilde Card: Immortal Vegas, Book 2

by Jenn Stark

  Brody’s brain came back on line, bristling as his last synapses flared to life. “So where is Roxie Meadows, exactly?”

  Armaeus gestured to a small knot of people around the fallen woman. She was moving, at least, but moaning. Weakly. Brody headed off for her without a second glance to me.

  I frowned. “What did you do to him?”

  “A harmless adjustment.” Armaeus dismissed my concern. “What SANCTUS did not seem to recall, and of course the Empress had no interest in explaining, is that a slight alteration to the pitch they’d chosen would produce an effect quite the opposite of what they intended. Instead of destroying the sensitivities of Connecteds, it augmented them, the same way it had augmented Roxie’s abilities all those years ago. In some very special cases, Connecteds will find themselves altered quite dramatically.”

  “Dramatically?” I watched as Dixie emerged from the crowd, her face alight with wonder. “Like how dramatically?”

  “Those Connected with a moderate level of ability are now masters. Masters are now savants. For a short while, even the dilettantes and fringe practitioners of the Connected community will experience heightened awareness, astral travel, lucid dreams, visions, and coincidences that cannot be easily explained away.”

  “So they got their Rapture after all.”

  “In a word, yes.” Armaeus nodded. “It will seem as if a psychic renaissance has been visited upon them. The rush of power will show them the pathway to greater understanding, if only for a while.”

  I grimaced. “Everyone?”

  “Everyone within the enhanced magical boundaries of the Las Vegas power grid. As it happens, that includes several very powerful Connecteds. The Deathwalkers will find themselves enhanced to a level they will find virtually intolerable, as they will not consider it organic to their own abilities.”

  Despite myself, my lips twitched. “Danae, too?”

  “Danae especially,” he said. “Annika Soo remains within the city, recovering from the first blast she received at the Rarity gala. Now she will have another level of augmentation to manage. We will be watching her very closely. Monsieur Mercault arrived this afternoon, in a coma.” Armaeus tilted his head, his gaze fixed on the horizon as a smile ghosted across his lips. “He is no longer in danger, however. Which means that answers will be forthcoming regarding the assault on his home by SANCTUS, and just how deeply he is mired in the network of dark practitioners.”

  I gaped at him. “You think you’re going to turn him to your side?”

  Armaeus’s glance back to me was sardonic. “I am on no ‘side’, Miss Wilde, but that of—”

  I held up a hand. “I beg you. Don’t say it.”

  “Very well. But Mercault, Soo and Danae should all prove very interesting to watch, over the coming days.” His gaze rested on me, and though he was speaking normally—as normal as Armaeus got anyway—his eyes remained far too dark.

  A sudden, irrational concern gripped me. “You were augmented too, weren’t you.”

  “I needed to be.” He waved back to the fountain. “Calling Llyr to show his face is not the act of an acolyte, at least not for an acolyte who wishes to keep control of the portal.”

  “That’s where Mantorov screwed up, right? He didn’t have the power—you did. And the portal took him because of that.

  “Grigori Mantorov knew a great deal, and knew enough that he did not wish to channel Llyr of his own volition. He drew me there, anticipating correctly that I would come for the same treasure he craved. The language of the ancients.”

  “…And God said…”

  He nodded. “A language not written for this dimension but which transcends it, accessible to the trained who speak it with power.” His smile twisted. “Or who possess the ability to use it without training.”

  I ignored that for the moment. “Now what? Brody is a Connected, Armaeus. He wasn’t before.”

  “He was—somewhat,” Armaeus said. “You cannot augment what is not there. He is an able detective, and his success is doubtless in part due to what he would call intuition. That is what was augmented, in a pure psychic sense.”

  “Yeah, well.” I frowned as Brody and Dixie stood staring at each other, lost in conversation. “He’s not going to start levitating or anything, is he?”

  “Is that truly your concern?”

  “Nope, he’s not my concern at all.” I shifted my gaze back to the Magician. “I thought you were injured. Failing.”

  “And again you came to my aid.” His expression softened. “Your raw power was at the surface, waiting to be tapped. In the moment, I judged it would be more effective than mine. Llyr has faced me before. Old foes know each other’s weaknesses. You, however, he underestimated.”

  “Not by a lot.” He’d missed the mark on fame and fortune, maybe. But not when it came to my parents. That had been spot-on. Too spot-on.

  I felt a familiar pressure in my mind.

  “Cut that out, juice head,” I snapped. “I’ve been amped up too, you know. Which means my wards are stronger.”

  “And yet…” He stood closer to me. Way too close. “Were you to allow me, I could also help you push past boundaries that you have heretofore been unable to break, make connections from which your own mind has barred you. In the time we have remaining under this influence, it is something to consider.”

  And maybe, just maybe my brain wouldn’t break anymore. Maybe, just maybe, I didn’t have to be afraid of what Armaeus would find if I let him in.

  Then I seemed to hear the rest of his words.

  “Ahhh… Time we have remaining?”

  “The effects of this sonic blast cannot be sustained. Worse, they can only be replicated with a sound emission once every several years. Otherwise, repeated exposure to the sound produces lesser and lesser results.”

  “So Roxie’s greatest con was well-timed, back in the seventies.”

  He nodded. “If she had not ascended to the Council, her abilities would have faded as well. The sonic amplification would have run its course.”

  “Like a drug.”

  “Exactly like that.” He gestured to the crowd. “At this moment we are—all of us—under the influence of a drug.”

  “There goes my future in the military.” I squinted at the men in the van. “What about them?”

  “Those truly not possessing psychic abilities will be unfazed, but the majority of those involved with SANCTUS turned to the group, ironically, because of their psychic abilities and their repressed shame over them. Now they will feel a great rightness within them that should feel like a wrong. It will send many of them to prayer, some to defection from their faith-based beliefs, and others will simply expand their understanding about what is possible in this world.”

  “They’ve become the enemy.” I liked that. I liked that a lot.

  Traffic parted enough for a tow truck to lumber onto the sidewalk, aiming for the crushed van. The SANCTUS drivers were being checked out by EMTs at this point, a cluster of cops standing off to the side with Brody. “You’re going to let SANCTUS’s minions go?”

  “They will be cited for failure to control their vehicle.” He shrugged. “After that, there will be no recollection that they did anything other than jump the curb to avoid a pileup on the boulevard. It can be very challenging to drive in Las Vegas.”

  I watched Dixie and Brody helping Roxie to her feet. She was crying. “What’s her deal? She should be in clover.”

  “Not…exactly.” Armaeus shook his head. “The Empress taught SANCTUS how to build their device. She helped them test it, perfect it. She knew what she was doing, and what it would cause. She simply didn’t expect it to be calibrated directly for her at any point.”

  I thought about the variation in the wall of sound right after I’d given Simon the Mongolian crown. “You calibrated the sound to affect the Council?”

  “Not the Council—her. As a result, she is no longer Connected. She can no longer be a member of the Council, now or evermore. No a
mount of artificial enhancement will allow her to regain her abilities to the sufficient level. She’ll return to her normal timeline of life, and pass when her days on this Earth are complete.”

  “No more a…” I turned back to the Bellagio. Sure enough, the fairy-tale castle that had soared above it like something out of an overblown Disney movie was gone. The space above the Bellagio was empty blue sky.

  “Sweet Christmas,” I breathed. “Is there a severance package?”

  “Wealth. Health. Beauty, according to her definition of it. The things she most wished for in this life, her deepest dreams and desires, will be granted to her.”

  “Kreios.” I widened my eyes. “That’s why he was here. To know her desires when her abilities were swept from her.”

  Armaeus nodded. “In addition, she has a story her mind can accept and build upon. In Roxie’s case, she was a grifter before her exposure to augmentation transformed her into something more. Her recollection will be simply that she was a very…successful grifter. A stage queen of the seventies, except her stage was in Vegas, and her life became extraordinarily comfortable because of that.”

  I stared at the weeping woman. “She doesn’t seem comfortable.”

  “Change never is. When her mind clears, it will be easier for her.” He said the words matter-of-factly. There was no warmth in his voice, no basic human compassion. Then again, Armaeus wasn’t human, exactly.

  Still, something didn’t add up. “But you changed the frequency to build up the Connecteds, after you zapped her. Why didn’t she gain it back? Hell, Brody is walking around glowing like a night-light now. Why not the Empress?”

  Armaeus’s smile was dark, darker than anything I’d ever seen on him, which was saying something. “I guess you could say it was magic.”

  A flash of bright blue caught my attention then, running through the crowd.

  It looked like a man.

  In a Mongolian death mask.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  By the time we got to Simon, he was perched in a crouch on top of his truck. Not in the bed of the truck, on top of it. Surrounding him were thirteen figures in long tunics and pants, sporting masks of wolves, demons, tigers, bulls, bears, and birds of prey. They practically shimmered with purpose, straining toward him without breaking the circle of deference that Simon had somehow circumscribed around himself.

  Armaeus peered thoughtfully at the creature nearest him. He lifted a hand, and the man froze, allowing Armaeus to draw his finger along the top edge of his mask. “This dates from the eighth century. That’s well before the time of Genghis Khan’s crown.”

  “Well, apparently these guys get around.” I frowned up at Simon. “What are you doing up there?”

  “I’m thinking,” he snapped. “I tried taking off the crown and tossing it to them. They threw it back.”

  I looked from him to Armaeus and back. “How do we get them to go away?”

  “I don’t think we do.” Simon glanced down to me. “Where’d you get this thing, again?”

  “Um…found it?”

  “Well, I get the strong feeling that these guys want it to stay found. Whoever you handed it over to didn’t want them hanging around, so…now they’re here. They want someone to follow.”

  Armaeus’s lips twisted. “They are not unlike many in this world.”

  “Not helpful.” Simon stood, his hands going out in a soothing gesture. The watchers moved as well, echoing his movement, never edging closer.

  “Sir.” A uniformed officer stood at the edge of the sidewalk and stared up at Simon. From his perspective, Simon had to look stoned on a full selection of drugs, each more trippy than the last. “Is this your vehicle? It can’t be parked on public property.” He frowned at the circle of death masks. “Neither can they.”

  I blinked, and realized that the world had gone on while we were recovering. Traffic was moving smoothly again on the boulevard, not counting the extra-large number of EMTs on the scene. Now Simon’s hyper-tricked-out monster truck was…noticeable.

  “I, um, got run off the road earlier.” Simon huffed out a breath. “I haven’t been able to get my vehicle started.”

  “Is that why you’re on the roof, sir? Wearing that helmet?” The officer’s voice sounded pained, and he took another step forward. “If you can’t remove your vehicle you’ll be cited and it will be tow—“

  In an elegant, flowing motion, the death mask closest to the officer turned, drawing his arm down in a graceful arc.

  The cop hit the pavement, out cold.

  “What the—” I dropped into a squat and crawled over to the police officer. He was breathing, with no apparent injuries, his heartbeat steady. He was actually…snoring.

  I squinted up at Simon as he hopped off the roof of the truck and landed lightly on the ground. “He’s not dead.”

  “Of course he’s not dead. They were protecting me.”

  Was it my imagination, or did Simon’s chest look a little fuller now? He pulled off the helmet, sighing. “But really and truly, I can’t accept this. You’ll need to find a…um…”

  The creatures were kneeling. Now to anyone walking by, Simon was holding a helmet and staring at a crowd of supplicants, while a passed-out cop lay at his feet. That couldn’t be good. Simon frowned at Armaeus. “Do you speak, ah, Mongolian?”

  The creatures lowered farther, and a soft, murmuring chant lifted around us, ethereal and eerie.

  Armaeus folded his arms. “It appears they are pledging fealty to you, Simon. They do not want to return to their homeland. They want to follow you to yours.”

  “Mine! What am I going to do with a posse of undead?”

  “Anything you would like, it would appear.”

  Simon frowned, looking from the men to his helmet. “What if they’re assholes?”

  “Every friendship has its challenges.”

  Simon sighed. “Fine. Tell them I—”

  Before he could get the words out, the creatures lifted their arms and backed away, bowing.

  My head started to hurt. “What in the…”

  At Simon’s feet, the cop was stirring. Simon set the helmet into the truck’s bed, then squatted down. “Officer? Officer! Are you all right?” he shouted loudly. “Do you need me to call an ambulance?”

  Armaeus drew me away. “I think Simon will be able to manage from here.”

  “But the—”

  Armaeus gestured almost lazily to the street. Standing at the curb were thirteen men, lined up at attention. Their bronzed skin linked them, some of them as young as Simon, some old, with whisper-white hair and deep furrows bracketing their eyes and mouths. They wore long, brightly colored tunics over dark loose pants, and they watched Simon without speaking, their gaze intent, their smiles wide. None of their masks were in evidence. Still, even in Vegas, they stood out. “Seriously? They’re human now?”

  He eyed me. “They were never anything but. The abilities of the human race exceed modern imagination, but not that of the ancient seers. You, out of everyone, should know that.”

  “I guess.” We were walking past the Bellagio again, where the enormous claw marks were—

  Armaeus waved his hand.

  —magically gone.

  “You get off on doing that, don’t you?”

  “People see what they expect to see, Miss Wilde.”

  I stared at the dancing fountains, and at the empty hole above the grand casino, where a fairy-tale castle once stood. And blinked again. The castle was gone, yes. But the space wasn’t empty. An enormous glittering glass foolscap soared above the Bellagio now, shimmering in the spray of the fountains.

  I grinned in spite of it all. “That was fast.”

  “An improvement, I should say.”

  I couldn’t argue. Especially since the place would be populated by sort-of almost real live people. “So, now you need a new Empress?”

  I sensed him glance toward me. “Are you interested in the position?”

  “That would
be negative. Getting benched seems pretty extreme.”

  “What happened to Roxie is not common and was brought about by her own hand.”

  “Yeah, no.” I waved him off. “I’m good. But that gets you down to…what, five? You, Kreios, Simon, Eshe—and the Emperor, right?” I swiveled my gaze to the grey stone castle above Caesars. Like the Empress’s palace, I’d never seen any sign of life there. “Does he ever come out of his hole?”

  “I suspect he will shortly.” It was impossible to read Armaeus’s tone. It was neutral, almost bored. But I’d been around him long enough to find that worrisome. “The Council has but one governing rule, Miss Wilde, beyond the balance of magic. And that is not to weaken the Council. Roxie sought to do that. Whether out of malice or spite or simply because she thought she might gain power because of it, does not matter.”

  “And…what, the Emperor did that too?”

  “No.” Armaeus shook his head. “The Emperor is, perhaps more than any of us, dedicated to the balance of dark and light magic.”

  The dots connected all on their own. “He’s the dark, isn’t he?” I stared at the monolith. “That’s why you don’t want him here. Roxie was dark too. Eshe, for all her bitch face, is neutral. Kreios is dark, but sort of like chocolate is dark. ” I frowned at him. “What are you?”

  “None and all. As head of the Council, that is my lot.”

  “Somebody’s gotta do it, I guess. And Simon?”

  “Light.” Armaeus’s mouth twitched into a tired smile.

  “So with Roxie gone, you’re out of balance. You’re going to need to add some true darkness of some kind.”

  “The balance does not have to be exact. Roxie was not that dark. She was vain and petty, but her augmented magic was strong. The evil did not outweigh the good that she wrought until the very end.”

  “Okay, but who else is out there? Death, the Hierophant, Hanged Man, Hermit? Maybe Justice, if you want to get technical about it. The rest…I don’t see as people, so much. The Lovers, I suppose. But that’s two people, right?”