by Jenn Stark
It worked. I flipped over onto my hands and knees, and for a heart-thundering second, I was free, army-crawling across the floor, pulling myself to my feet—
And then a body crashed into mine again, flattening me once more to the floor, grinding my face into the sumptuous carpet, Kreios’s chest against my shoulder blades, his legs heavy on the back of my thighs, his groin—
My eyes crossed as he pressed into me. “Better?” he murmured, though I wasn’t quite up to speech for a long, shuddering breath.
“I told you no,” I spit out when I could talk again, and the Devil’s laugh drifted down over my ears.
“You denied liking the way I made you feel, Sara Wilde. That is a far different thing from telling me to stop making you feel that way.” He drifted a kiss over my hair. “Something for you to remember.”
And with that, he stripped himself off my body. Anger exploding through me, I rolled up to my feet, whirling around to fend off another attack.
Kreios regarded me with amusement from his chair, his drink still in his hand. Mine sat waiting for me next to my chair, its level indicating that I’d had a few healthy swigs, no more.
“An illusion,” I managed shakily, straightening my clothes. Not a stitch had come off my body. Even my Tyet had remained firmly in place, not reacting cold or hot to the Devil’s assault. “That…was all an illusion.”
Kreios shrugged. “Did it feel like an illusion?”
I gingerly touched my jaw where it had been shoved against the carpeted floor, wincing as my fingers connected with the abraded skin. “But—”
“Come here,” he said, his voice echoing in my bones. Ignoring him, I walked over to the bar where the Glenmorangie still sat, and pulled another crystal tumbler from the rack. Kreios’s laughter was rich and full behind me.
“You see, you can choose that which you prefer to take as real, versus what you choose to see as illusion. Which makes me wonder why you allow yourself to live with the illusions you do.”
I turned and scowled at him. “I’m aware of the council’s abilities of manipulation, Kreios. And I appreciate the reminder. But don’t treat me like a fool.”
“Then stop acting like one.” Just like that, Kreios was in front of me again, his impossibly beautiful eyes staring down at me, his lush lips bare inches from mine, sending my body into another spasm of need. “You, more than most in this world, have the ability to see beyond your fears, your desires. To recognize them merely as tools that serve to unlock a greater truth. You should learn to trust yourself.”
“I can’t trust myself!” I shoved him, and he fell back easily, which only served to piss me off more. “You of all people should know that. I can’t—”
“Ah-ah-ah,” He raised a finger, the danger shimmering between us almost like a living thing. “Have a care with sharing your fears, sweet Sara. Remember, I cannot know them without your tacit permission.”
I broke off, staring at him, my heart thundering, the entire history of my horrible choices parading in front of my eyes, mocking me for ever having trusted myself. “Then what can you see?” I asked carefully.
“I can see a woman so powerful that she blocks what she cannot endure,” Kreios said. I shifted my gaze to him, and his mouth teased into a smile. “Imagine that. All the horrors that are clearly dancing in your mind are held back from me as if they never happened. Imagine, if these are the things you see, what you have forgotten. How deep must your terror be for something to just”—he fluttered long, elegant fingers—“disappear?”
I frowned at him, confused, then understanding dawned. “You mean with Armaeus. The fact that parts of…our time together, I can no longer remember.”
“I do not blame you, of course. As tedious as the Magician is when standing upright, he must be an absolute trial in bed.”
Heat scored my cheeks, but I managed to regard Kreios with a more or less steady gaze. “And you know why I blocked those memories, I take it?”
“Of course. I know your innermost needs and desires, Sara.” He grinned. “And this blockage was born of those, not of any true fear. So yes, I know why you did it.” He took another step toward me, leaning down. I was too busy wrapping my brain around his words to fully take in his movements—his arms reaching out to gather me close, his body fitting itself to mine, his head bending down, his mouth nuzzling against my lips, setting a thousand fires aflame along every filament of my nervous system. “Would you like me to tell you?” he asked, tasting me, teasing me, his hands sliding down my back. “Would you like to tell me why your need with Armaeus is so great that you must shutter it from your own mind?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, no. Not gonna happen,” I said, my voice solid and sure. I could go another six or seven lifetimes without dipping my toe back into that murky water.
Kreios drew back, his eyes bright with delight, his grin unabashed.
“Excellent. Then I shall look forward to our next dance, Sara Wilde. You will learn, in time, that when there is no one else who will tell you the truth, that I will be there for you. And when you come to me, I will tell you everything. If you pay the price.” And he dissolved in front of me, leaving me alone in the cabin—except for the form of Aleksander Kreios far across from me, sprawled out on his chair in deep, snoring slumber, a contented expression on his face.
“Asshat,” I muttered.
His lips quirked up in a smile.
Chapter Sixteen
The sun poured in mercilessly from all sides when I finally stirred, disoriented, only to realize I was still in my chair, the unit cranked all the way back.
“I was wondering if you’d ever awaken,” Kreios drawled. He looked freshly showered, his suit changed to a linen shirt, open at the collar down to his chest, paired with buttery soft khakis. On his feet, he wore sandals, and it took great fortitude for me not to stare. Even the man’s feet were beautiful.
“Yes, well,” he said, though I hadn’t spoken. “I tried to get you to share my cabin or to avail yourself of your own. But you were quite insistent about remaining where you slept. But I have spoken to Armaeus,” he said, holding up a phone I didn’t recognize. “He is awaiting us both at that god-awful fortress of his.”
“As opposed to where? I don’t suppose you simply take out a suite at the Bellagio when you’re in Vegas?”
“Why?” He grinned at me. “Are you considering paying me a visit after all?”
“Yeah. No.” His words from earlier haunted me. What truths was he hinting at…and what price? Or was this simply how Kreios worked—getting his marks to believe he could give them something they didn’t have, something they eventually believed they needed more than life itself, for a price they would never otherwise consider paying? I didn’t know. And right now, I didn’t want to know.
But I couldn’t deny my curiosity about his home in Sin City. Because, seriously.
One of the best charms of the Arcanan Council had to be their digs. The first time I’d seen them, I’d been caught completely off guard. I’d just rounded the Strip at the turn of the Venetian Hotel, steamed that I’d even agreed to come to Crazytown in the first place. Then I’d looked up and had almost been run over by the horde of chain-smoking senior citizens, raucous college guys, and giggling bachelorette parties the city seemed to aspirate with every rum-soaked breath.
Nothing could have prepared me for the Arcanan’s shadow realm, though. Hidden beyond of the typical tourist’s sightline, an entire candy land of enormous gleaming casinos soared above the boulevard, each one larger than the last. A stone fortress crested above Caesar’s Palace, bleak and imposing as a mighty medieval castle. A glittering nightclub surmounted with the word SCANDAL in brilliant neon overlaid the Flamingo as a glittering skyscraper of glass, complete with a lighting effect that made it seem like fire was crawling up the side of the building.
Then there was the massive castle billowing majestically over and around the Bellagio, a fairy tale palace wrought in pure rose marble and shimmerin
g leaded glass. Above Paris shot a sheer black column in perfect counterpoint to the White Tower that had suddenly erupted beside me, rising above Treasure Island, both of them stark and cold.
And there in the far distance, topping Luxor Casino’s pyramid and glowering sphinx, was an extraordinary gothic fortress of steel and stone, glass and fire.
Somehow, I’d known that that was where Armaeus lived, but at first, none of the others made sense.
“Scandal,” I said now. “That’s your place, isn’t it?” I held up a hand to stop his reply. “Because when I saw it last, it was lit up like a fire show and seemed to be doing just fine without you. Who took care of it while you were on your little forced sabbatical?”
Kreios quirked an irritated glance at me, but once more I felt like I’d displayed my ignorance, that this was information I should have known. Would have known, if Armaeus didn’t constantly play his cards so close to the vest. Fortunately, the sudden chunk of the descending wheels of the aircraft cut off conversation, and the plane touched down a few minutes later, the private airstrip one I’d come to know well enough in the past few months. We emerged from the jet only to be knocked almost level by the oppressive Nevada heat, which had to be pushing ninety-five degrees with the sun high in the sky.
A jet-black town car rested just off the runway, with a familiar figure standing beside it, holding a little white placard. As if there could possibly be anyone else arriving at this location at this time.
I grinned despite myself as Nikki Dawes saluted smartly, stunning in a complete chauffeur’s uniform, complete with a snap cap, tight-fitting black jacket that barely contained her ample breasts, a pencil skirt that made the most of her mile-long legs, and towering, size-thirteen platform pumps. No hosiery touched her well-muscled calves, but the concession was a practical one—this was Vegas in May, after all. And besides, she had amazing legs.
Kreios trotted easily down the stairway behind me, admiring the scenery as well. “Armaeus is improving in his taste in drivers.”
I smirked. “That’s right, you two haven’t met, have you? She came on the scene after your incarceration.”
“Your continual reminders do you no favors, Sara.”
“And one day I might possibly care.”
I’d gotten Nikki as a driver and general gopher for the council once she’d hooked me up with the Tyet, since I’d quickly realized I needed all the friends I could get in Oz. At first she hadn’t been able to see the more elaborate elements of the Arcanan’s world, since it didn’t technically exist in this plane. But she was an advanced psychic in her own right, and it didn’t take her long to catch on.
Now, as we approached her, her eyes widened under her heavy mascara, her masculine face blanking with unfeigned awe. “I really, really like the souvenirs you bring home to me, babe,” she said in her marginally feminine voice. Then she smiled widely at Kreios as she clasped her hands behind her back, tucking her placard out of sight to give him unrestricted access to the full glorious view of her. “To the Strip, sir? And where have you been all my life?”
For his part, Aleksander Kreios tilted his head, studying Nikki from the tips of her streaked brown wig to the toes of her sharp-pointed shoes, pausing notably to study her impressive—and very expensive—assets. He held up a hand, a card having materialized in it, which he slid into the plunging vee of Nikki’s cleavage. “Please stop by my club anytime, Miss Dawes,” he drawled as Nikki’s eyes dilated despite the scorching sun beating down on us.
She issued a sound that might have been a whimper, but, ever the professional, she dutifully opened the door for us. We slid into the cool comfort of the limousine, and I found myself relaxing for one precious moment.
Just one—but damned if it wasn’t a good one.
“Straight to the man in black?” Nikki asked again, her composure firmly back in place as she flicked a glance in the rearview mirror . I hadn’t seen if she’d palmed the card out of her bra or not, but knowing Nikki, probably not.
“It’s a pity we don’t have time to stop at Fremont Street.” Kreios sighed. “So much unfinished business there.”
“On Fremont?” I met Nikki’s eyes, and just like that, my moment had passed. So that was where the girls from Kavala were.
Fremont Street was the home of the Las Vegas of yesteryear, where the city had really gotten its start before the heyday of the Strip had taken over with its ever-growing casinos and entertainment complexes. Though the Arcanans preferred the wide-open Strip for their immense personal dwellings, the older part of the city still drew its share of magic.
But it was the darker side of magic. As in pitch-black. Nikki and her fellow carnies who worked the Strip had their hands full keeping the young and the newly arrived in Vegas from straying into that hellhole, but it wasn’t an easy battle. And each year, from what little she’d told me so far, it was getting a bit more difficult.
“Yes,” Kreios sighed languorously. “The gentleman who gave me such poor information on my contacts in Hungary makes his living in the back of Binion’s, as it happens. I shall have to pay him a visit soon.”
“Not the nicest casino anymore,” Nikki observed, and I turned to see Kreios’s smile grow craftier.
“It suits him that way, I suspect,” he said. “The fewer respectable people in the front of the house, the easier it is to get his business done in the back.”
“The back? You mean Vato’s?” Nikki regarded the Devil. “Nothing there but a highly questionable collection of stogies.”
I cut short the inevitable conversation on cigars as I saw Kreios’s interest being piqued. “And what sort of business would your one-time friend carry on in such an illustrious location?” I knew what Kreios was doing, but I also remembered his promise from the airplane. His penchant for the truth carried an eerie sort of excitement with it. He would speak honestly, I was sure, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be deceiving us.
“His newest venture is the recreation of the Oracle of Delphi, as it happens,” Kreios drawled. “He was very excited about it—so much potential. He spoke of his search to find perfect young women for his masterpiece, lovely, pure psychics who would feast upon the mix of gasses once available only on the mountain of—”
“Cut the crap, Kreios,” I snapped, staring at him. “I know what he’s using them for. Where specifically is he keeping them?”
Kreios’s eyes flared, and he tilted his head, almost as if he was scenting the air for corruption. “They are deep in the center of his holding,” he said. “To get to them, you must go through a raft of other young women, all psychics, all blindfolded and in most pitiable condition, I’m afraid. One who is missing her right ear.”
“Hold the phone.” Nikki’s voice erupted from the front seat, startling me, though Kreios seemed unaffected. With a quick jerk of the wheel, she knifed the limo into a bus stop space, then turned in her seat. “What are you—”
She dropped off sharply. Kreios had vanished.
Her gaze swung to me. “Those girls he mentioned—not the oracles, but the blindfolded ones. We’ve lost six girls from Dixie’s in the last three months, Sara. Six. All of them too damned dumb to live, but Dixie was doing her level best to keep them safe, like she does every pitiful soul that crosses her shadow. One of them”—she punched a long, lacquered nail to where Kreios had been sitting—“had had her ears removed when she was six years old.” Nikki’s lips curled into a snarl. “Because of the things she heard.”
I tightened my own lips. Dixie Quinn was one of Nikki’s friends. Given my penchant for leaving the city as soon as I’d arrived, we’d never met, of course. Nikki talked about her like she was some kind of Vegas institution—always on the lookout for wayward Connected. “I never did like Binion’s,” I said. “But given that we’ve lost our fare…”
“Maybe we should give it another shot,” she agreed. “Hang on.”
Nikki wheeled the car around into traffic, and we shot back onto Paradise Road a minute later, w
eaving our way through the heavy knot of tourists. “Where’d pretty boy go, anyway?” she asked over her shoulder. “The Magician gonna be all hot and bothered you didn’t deliver him?”
“I suspect they’ll find each other eventually.” And Kreios would have some explaining to do when they did. I took out my phone and checked my locator wafer on the reliquary—nada. Had Kreios strapped it into one of the exhaust pipes of Armaeus’s private jet, conducting his own personal cremation ceremony? If so, I had a bad feeling that would reflect poorly in my compensation for this little adventure, but given that the thing had been turned into Kreios’s prison, I could hardly blame the guy for wanting it destroyed. Now I wondered if he had actually entered the limo with us, or if he’d taken his leave after depositing his card into Nikki’s bra. “You have his card, right?”
“Are you kidding? It’s been keeping my altogether warm for the past twenty minutes. Which one is he, anyway? Not that I’m planning to pay him a visit, but—”
“The Devil.”
Nikki’s mouth clapped shut. Then she muttered, “Be still my heart.” Her fingers stuttered out a rapid ratatat on the steering wheel for another full minute, then she flipped on her blinker and got into the right lane. “I think we’re gonna need a detour, doll.”
“No detour.” I frowned at her. “If those women are really at Binion’s, they’re not going to be in great shape. The Devil’s been out of commission for a long time. I don’t know where he got his data, but that could be outdated too. We might already be too late.”
“If they’re in Binion’s, they’re not alone. You heard him yourself. Apparently they’ve also roped in some of the local girls, and the one he was talking about with no ear? I know her. She doesn’t speak English, and I sure as hell don’t speak Romanian. But Dixie does.”
I stared at her as she whipped into a turn. We streaked away from the Strip, into a warren of squat houses and scorched plots of land, as most of the Las Vegas residents varied between decorating decisions that involved rocks, cactus, and sand. Another turn and the houses got ever so slightly seedier, and then a final turn and we were back close to the Strip, in the near-but-not-quite-overflow area where the cut-rate casinos, strip clubs, and taquerias flourished.
