by Jenn Stark
“Sir, you can’t—”
“LVMPD,” Brody said, cutting him off. “I want you to personally stay with this car and keep it close enough that we get it back within thirty seconds of coming out the front door. We’re not going to be inside for long, I don’t think. Fifteen, twenty minutes max. You got that?”
“I—”
“Good.” Brody headed for the casino, and Nikki and I followed suit. Nobody accosted us as we entered the front doors of the Flamingo, and we were immediately sucked in by the retro vibe of the place. As with the Luxor, the elevator bank of doors that led to the Devil’s primary home in Las Vegas were visible in the corner of my eye. But we weren’t here for an audience with Kreios.
The Devil, however, was in the details. Or at least perched in the tall chair of the first slot machine past the lobby, his godlike body now loose and angular in a frayed linen shirt and khakis.
“Detective Rooks, I’m honored that you chose my little establishment for your meet and greet,” he said. “How may I be of service?”
Brody took Kreios’s sudden appearance in stride. “We got some agents of Interpol waiting for us in the coffee shop, and I don’t think they’re alone. I need to know who else has eyes on them.”
“But of course. We'll speak again after your chat. You won’t be unduly disturbed, I assure you.” The Devil waved us on, and Brody angled right across the casino floor. He kept moving until we arrived at the doorway of the chain coffee shop tucked into the back of the casino, the first offering in a cornucopia of restaurants and eateries.
“Table in the back,” Nikki murmured. Despite the fact that she was still wearing her Wonder Woman costume, nobody gave her a second glance. Such was life in Vegas.
“Roland and Marguerite?” I asked.
“And goon makes three.” Nikki nodded.
From this distance, the pair in the back booth of the coffee shop certainly looked like the two officials from Interpol. They'd done their level best to track me halfway across the world, waiting for me to slip up so they could tag the House of Swords as drug traffickers. I didn’t recognize the bodyguard, but Marguerite was slender, brunette, and particular, her eyes picking me out across the room as her body went rigid. Beside her, however, Roland was the bigger revelation. Ordinarily casual to the point of slovenliness, he now was dressed in a tailored suit, tie, and a button-down shirt that looked like it’d actually been washed within the last week.
“The team’s cleaning up,” Nikki observed drily. “They are being watched, sugar lips, and they know it. Totally good call on that.”
We stopped at the opening to the coffee shop and were greeted by a subdued-looking waiter who ushered us into the eating area. We didn’t even have to order our coffee at the front register. A carafe was already waiting on the table, three fresh cups set up. Roland’s and Marguerite’s coffee cups sat in front of them, untouched.
I lifted my brows. They were that nervous that they wouldn’t even accept coffee when it was offered? What kind of law enforcement were these people?
“Ms. Dupree, Mr. Fiat,” Brody said tersely, unnecessarily gesturing Nikki and me to sit. Nikki made a show of unhooking her golden lasso and placing it on the table next to her, a move that seemed to mesmerize Roland.
Marguerite, true to form, was all business. “Thank you for meeting us at short notice. I’m going to keep this brief.” She shot her gaze to me. “You are no longer a person of official interest to us. You have been cleared of our suspicion regarding your involvement in the illegal drug trade. This unofficial meeting is exactly that, unofficial. You’ll no longer be troubled by Interpol.”
My brows lifted. Brody had already mentioned this, but I was willing to play along.
“May I ask what convinced Interpol of my innocence?”
Roland shifted. “You can ask, and I suspect if we knew, we might even tell you. But, we don’t know. The information came as a call that we were supposed to stand down. Should you willingly wish to work with us to ensure the safety of our member nation states, we would be delighted to receive your help, of course.” He said this last with the slightest curve of his upper lip, in a way unique to the French. He was clearly reciting from some document or directive they’d received.
Marguerite picked up the thread. “We will, of course, continue to monitor the activities of the local drug trade up to and including standard surveillance on the activities of any organization as a whole as we see fit.” She didn’t come right out and say they were going to keep a close eye on the House of Swords, but she might as well have.
“Uh-huh. You’ve been doing that for a long time, and you haven’t found anything. I would suspect you will continue to not find anything,” Nikki said with a drawl.
I leaned forward. “To tell you the truth, I don’t care so much right now what your interest is in me, other than who is pulling your strings. You have any information on that?”
Irritation flared in Marguerite’s eyes. It was clear she was not happy about the directive.
“The red and blue notices have both been removed from the system, and communications with our partner governments are ongoing to ensure that they’ve received word of your updated status. You will be able to move unhindered internationally, should you wish to travel.”
“Well, that’s great, but it’s not like you guys slowed me down all that much.”
The waiter who greeted us came back with a fresh pot of cream, as well as a half-dozen donuts. Nikki and Brody immediately reached for the plate, but the two French officers remained rooted in their chairs.
“Is there anything wrong with the donuts?” I asked in a low voice. Nikki and Brody didn’t seem to care.
Roland shook his head. “Not at all,” he said, almost hurriedly, reaching out for a sweet roll as well. Once again, I got the unmistakable sense of being watched. Somebody had their eyes and ears on this little meet up, and they cared about whether or not Roland ate a donut.
Donut, I thought. Six of them. Like money raining from the sky.
The Six of Pentacles.
“Oh, crap,” I muttered.
And that’s when the first knife whistled past my ear.
Chapter Eighteen
“Down!”
Brody’s barked command threw us all into motion, but in the absence of the typically galvanizing burst of gunfire, no one outside the coffee shop seemed to notice the commotion going on. A half-dozen black-clad figures poured out of the kitchen behind the mutely frozen waitstaff. Several more ran into the restaurant from the casino, barricading the front door.
Roland and Marguerite, for all that they were international badasses, were not, technically, operatives. They didn’t protest as Nikki shoved them to the ground, but there were too many bodies in too close quarters for her to pull her gun. Instead, she started swinging. Brody and the Interpol bodyguard did too.
No one seemed to care but me that the knives were still coming.
Leaping up, I took one of the blades in the back, feeling it punch through my jacket and into muscle. Another one deflected off my legs; a third one was aimed straight for my face. As I watched, however, time seemed to slow. Not enough for me to get out of the way, never enough for that, but only enough—
A hand flashed out in front of me, the rolled-up white sleeve baring a swath of newly tanned skin. Kreios stood grinning at me, a knife caught in his easy grasp, as all around me, people remained frozen in place, midfight.
“What the hell?” I gasped.
“You’ll forgive the theatrics, but I couldn’t resist when the discreet inquiries began about twenty minutes ago for access to locations inside this lovely old casino. My networks have networks, you see, and those networks were buzzing with the hit about to be set up on Sara Wilde. It really was too delicious.”
“And you didn’t think maybe to warn us?” Now that I’d caught my breath, I wrapped my hand around the hilts of the blades that had pincushioned me. I pulled each out in turn, sending healing energy into t
he slice marks the knives left behind. Kreios, ever the gentleman, helped me remove the dagger buried between my shoulder blades.
Ouch.
“I would have warned you, but for three things.” Kreios said in his lush, rolling voice. “One, you have the lovely and delectable Miss Dawes with you, as well as the somewhat useful Detective Rooks. It’s been some time since I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them in action. Two, the directives were that if you survived the assault, you were to be taken to a room in this very hotel, one that didn’t need to be booked on the fly because it’s permanently booked, under the name Bugsy Siegel. Also delicious. Did you know all the casino hotels have several permanently booked, seldom-if-ever-used rooms?”
I tried to focus on Kreios, I really did, but I mostly was obsessed by the idea that time had literally stopped. Compressed, freezing everyone in place. I’d experienced this once before, but in the opposite. When I was in Hell, time had seemed to pass into weeks and months, maybe even years, and I had experienced every moment of that passage, only to find out that barely a moment had gone by in the real world.
This was something different. And something far more useful, given the givens.
“How did you do this?” I asked. “And do other people know this is happening? Like whoever ordered this hit?”
“As to your first question, I am, if I do say so, a master of illusion. And time is perhaps the greatest illusion of all.” Kreios grinned. “As to the second, no. To them, the fight merely continues apace. But while we’ve got this altercation on ice, why not check out who happens to be in the Syndicate Room?”
“The Syndicate Room,” I deadpanned. “Rented by Bugsy Siegel. You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Kreios sighed. “Delicious,” he said happily.
Without another word, we moved past the tableau of frozen people into the casino proper, where the lights flashed and the machines still whirred, the focus of the players unbroken by the cacophony in the coffee shop. When the fight recommenced, would they take notice? Or was the coffee shop shielded in some way? It would be interesting to see, depending on whether or not I made it back here.
To my surprise, the Syndicate Room of the Flamingo Hotel was buried in the back of the building, down a narrow corridor that had the air of disuse for all that it was remarkably well appointed. The carpet and wallpaper appeared new, or new enough, and the trimmings were more elegant than I would have expected in the venerable old Las Vegas casino.
“Are you going in with me?” I asked. I glanced at him, then paused. Gone was the Mediterranean playboy, replaced by the clean-cut waiter. “Seriously?”
“I needed to be close enough to hear what was going on.” Kreios shrugged. “Besides, someone had to escort you here, someone they arranged to also be close. And the look was not a difficult one to effect.”
I nodded. “Are these Connecteds we’re walking in on?”
“You know, I have no idea,” Kreios said with another deep, rolling chuckle. “I couldn’t be happier about that. Their shields are old. Very old. And nothing I’ve encountered before.” He sighed again, more content than I’d seen him in a long time. “Scrumptious.”
I hadn’t encountered shields of this caliber either, but that was perhaps less surprising. My third eye opened, and it was as if the room beyond was encased in a layer of lead. I could tell there was an electrical activity going on within, but not specific enough activity to do anything with the information. But the shield itself was less interesting to me than the Devil’s reaction to it. The novelty of such a barrier seemed so enticing, so electric to him…
Kreios lifted his hand to knock on the door—but I reached out, stopping him. “Wait. There’s something I need to know first.”
He turned and gave me his full attention, his lips curving. There was nothing the Devil loved more than sharing knowledge. To him, the truth was nearly always more devastating than a lie.
“Anything,” he practically purred.
“Is it worth it?” The question was so bald that Kreios blinked, his brows shooting up. He didn’t have to ask what I meant, of course. He could read my mind. But to his credit, he still appeared to give my question due consideration.
“Is it worth it…” he repeated slowly, rolling the words around like a cat with a ball of twine. “Is it worth it? You see us, the Council, and you think we are bored, spoiled, indolent, vapid. Or, worse, raging narcissists so desperate for validation that we would bend the world and all its people to our whims if we didn’t have some restrictions placed on us. Or, worse still, that we’ve been fully duped, trapped by the very strength that allowed us to ascend, rats caught in a self-contained maze. And you wonder, is it worth it?”
“That’s maybe a little harsher than what I had in mind, but…sure,” I allowed.
“Well.” Kreios’s smile only grew deeper. “I will give you your answers, and you can do with them what you will. As to what we are and what we are not, I would caution you not to believe every glamour you see. We can accomplish much through such misdirection. Further, though we are at pains to convince the world otherwise, we are as powerful as we need to be—sometimes more, but never less. Beyond that, I would remind you, the Council is not a fixed mark, but a construct of its strongest members. Whatever change might occur within it may only be wrought by those strongest members. But such change is—always—possible. Necessary, in fact, as times demand. And I, who love change so very much, particularly when it is born of strength and fire and the chaos of creation? Well…I could imagine no better place to be, my dear Sara Wilde. No better place at all.”
He executed a short bow, then turned smartly back to the door. “Shall I?” he asked, fairly vibrating with excitement at the prospect of whatever lay within the Syndicate Room.
I nodded, my mind still running through his words. There was…there was something there, I knew. Something important. Something right.
Kreios rapped on the door, and I sensed the energy coming toward it, then pausing at the doorway as if to check out the visitors before admitting entry. A moment later, the door opened, and Kreios turned to me with a flourish, inviting me to precede him inside.
“Chicken,” I muttered, and his grin only deepened. Say what you want about the Devil of the Arcana Council, he knew how to enjoy the moment.
I entered the Syndicate Room.
The first thing that struck me was that the room was empty, save for the man who opened the door, who looked to be approximately the age of Methuselah. Stooped over and shuffling, he held the door for us as we entered, then closed it with a sigh. I wasn’t sure if it was the door sighing or the majordomo, but neither seemed happy to be moving.
The second thing I noticed was that the space we’d entered was not at all like a hotel room, or even a hotel conference room. It was more like a luxurious study. Several stuffed leather chairs sat in a loose conversational seating group, some of them with thick, soft-looking throws draped over their arms, arranged atop a luxurious Turkish carpet and hardwood floors. The walls were paneled in dark reddish-brown wood, and Tiffany lamps stood on a scatter of side tables. A bar stood against one wall, polished to a high sheen.
How in the hell did you not notice this in your own casino?
Without stopping to consider that this was Kreios, not Armaeus, I put the thought into the ether as if we typically had head-to-head conversations. Kreios visibly started, then cocked his head, a dog who’s discovered yet another treat.
“My dear Sara Wilde,” he thought again, the tone of his interior voice awash with wonder. “You never do fail to impress.”
A door in the back of the room opened, and a man stepped in, dressed in a business suit. He was followed by three other men, all of them wearing tailored suits, all of them carrying the air of unselfconscious money. This testosterone brigade was dripping money, in fact, yet as they came into the room, they all eyed me with something that almost approached deference. They also were about as Connected as my sports bra. What was going on?
“Madame Sara Wilde,” said the first, executing a bow. “I apologize that we were not already assembled to greet you. My understanding is that there is absolutely no disturbance in the casino, and yet you are here. Which is…surprising, but perhaps not.” He spoke with a distinct French accent.
I narrowed my eyes. “Who are you?”
“Who is less important than what.” He shrugged. “You can find the who out easily enough. But we are, perhaps, more than the sum of our parts.”
I didn’t mean to do it, but I’d left Nikki and Brody fighting knife-wielding assailants, and I’d taken a knife to my back, a wound that, while healing, hurt. A lot. In a flash of irritation, I fixated on the speaker, holding his gaze with my own. My third eye flickered open, and I reached out further, behind his eyes, to read the thoughts that were uppermost in his mind, the way I’d so easily read Brody’s mere hours earlier.
And…I got nothing.
I tried again—I knew people who could read minds, I was standing next to someone who could read minds, so why couldn’t I read minds now that I was, well, putting my mind to it?
Beside me, Kreios chuckled, and the gazes of all the men riveted on him. “If you have no limits, your path must lead in one of two directions, neither of which I suspect you are quite prepared for. Not quite yet, I think. Still, allow me to assist.” With that, he flooded my mind with information. At the first words, however, I straightened.
“The Sentinel Group,” I said, every instinct kicking in, my worry and doubts and suspicions all coming together at once. The shadow group I’d been waiting for had finally revealed itself. “What’s going on here?”
To their credit, the men didn’t move. The man in front, Henri de Castille, I knew now from Kreios’s information, smiled easily, satisfaction writ large on his face. “You have heard of us, it would seem.”
