by Claire Kane
“Excuse me?” Victor asked.
“Tigers,” she repeated. “They’re not lions. And these aren’t white, either. It’s a new act trying to break in on old territory. I guess the guys figured that using regular tigers would somehow be ‘new and different’.”
“Whatever,” Victor replied, scanning the cabin with a scowl. “The one cat I deal with is enough.” He glanced at the ceiling, thinking of his spirit guide. “And yes, Rao, I know you heard that. No snark.”
Lacey laughed, but Victor sighed. “I’m going to be on edge this entire trip, but I think you’ll need me here more than you ever needed me in Seattle.”
Lacey frowned, only partially serious. “If I haven’t yet proven that I can take care of myself, then I don’t think I ever will. Either way, I’m still a big girl, and I’m smart enough to stay out of too much trouble.”
Victor gave her a suffering look.
“Okay, so I’m also smart enough to recognize the value of a little supernatural assistance. If you weren’t so sweet, honest, and hot, Victor,” Lacey said matter-of-factly, “I’d have told you to just stay in Heaven. But I’ll let you follow me around doing my bidding.”
Victor rolled his eyes, but laughed all the same. “Well, just know that I’ll be the best watchdog you’ve ever had. And be glad you can’t see what I can see.” He shuddered slightly, but none of the dark spirits on the flight seemed to care. “Anyway, we’ll be landing soon. I’ll be glad when we’re headed back. Even if it weren’t for the dark ones on this flight, look how dead this place is.”
Lacey looked out the window again, and sighed. “Victor,” she said, her eyes scanning the glittering lights amidst the night sky, “maybe you just forgot what living is. Do what you want, but Nainai and I are going to have ourselves a ball.”
THREE
Lacey’s “ball” was supposed to start with a limousine, not a taxi that reeked of alcoholic puke. She nearly retched upon entering and Nainai looked ready to faint. Still, not wasting any time, Lacey helped her grandmother inside and sat. She told the cabby their destination, then quickly dialed Ginger Rose’s phone number she’d already programmed into her iPhone’s contacts.
As it rang, she gave in to the desire to pinch her nose to survive the nuclear stench. Braving it with a forced smile was more than she could muster, even if she’d learned in her line of work that smiling always helped a voice sound happier. Certainly, the acidic odor would permanently scar her teeth.
Ginger answered on the third ring. “Hello, is this Lacey Link?” She had a thick, Russian accent.
Lacey gagged a yes in response.
“You sound poisoned, comrade.”
Lacey’s eyes started burning. “N-no, I’m not poisoned.” She choked out, “And this is Ginger... Rose?”
Nainai rolled down her window. “Hellllp, help!”
Lacey squeezed her eyes shut, trying really hard to focus. “Ginger?”
“Yes, your company called and told me to expect to hear from you,” she said. “Your area code is the same as theirs, so I just presumed. You do not sound anything like I expected...”
Lacey ignored that last comment. “Great! So you know I’m on assignment, looking into the details of your roommate’s”--gag!--“sudden death.”
A silent beat passed. Fresh air poured in from Nainai’s window, helping. Lacey quickly added with a more professional tone, “I want to give you my condolences and see if there’s anything I can do to help solve the case.”
“Yes, that would be good. Meet me tonight at The Flamingo, on bus number eleven at nine-thirty sharp. Have a spoonful of ginger before you come. Not me, the root. It will help your ailment. Goodbye.”
Lacey nodded and hung up wordlessly.
Upon arriving at her destination, Lacey paid the cabby as fast as she could, and jumped out before the receipt had even printed. She gently hauled her grandmother out while the cabby, who smelled almost as bad as the inside of his car, walked around to the trunk and popped out their luggage. Lacey pulled the bags out, and hurried away the best she could, ignoring the driver’s scowl at her lack of a tip.
Victor appeared, walking beside her, looking pained. “I wish I could help you with your luggage, babe,” he said.
Lacey waved it off, grateful to be able to breathe again. It was then that she finally looked up at the motel. Cathy had been strangely hesitant to give her details other than talking up the fact that the motel was “right on the Strip,” which she seemed very excited about. When Lacey had pressed for a name, Cathy had deflected the question by giving her an address, a nervous wink, and a comment about it being “a surprise.”
“Besides,” Cathy had said when Lacey first accepted the small job, “it’s Vegas! I’d give my right arm to trade you places, if I didn’t have work here to do. You’ll be fine. And it’s on us, so you won’t even have to worry about the expense.” The woman had laughed nervously and the conversation ended shortly thereafter.
Now Lacey understood her friend’s reticence to share. Though the motel wasn’t as bad as some she’d read about in books, and while she was reasonably sure it wasn’t in the middle of a gang war zone, the place was just… cheap. As in, “the same kind of motel she could find in small town Kansas” cheap. There were no neon signs, no casino floor, no well-oiled pool boys offering her towels and frosted beverages while she lounged in a hot tub. No, it was as vanilla as hotels got.
“Look, Lacey,” Nainai said, swatting her backside to get her attention, “we’re in Vegas!”
Lacey sighed, but turned to see what her grandma was talking about. Suddenly, her disappointment turned around. The MGM Grand Hotel rose from the Strip not half a block away, a gargantuan emerald in the night. Beyond it, a miniature recreation of the New York skyline, complete with a looping roller coaster beckoned to her, only to have to compete with a castle that could comfortably fit three football fields. To her left, between the lit towers of the Tropicana Hotel she caught a glimpse of an onyx pyramid with a light on top that outshined the Sun.
A street ran right down the middle of it all and, now that Lacey no longer had to worry about her stomach, she realized that she was looking at the Las Vegas Strip. She dropped her bag, and before she could think, squealed like a little girl who’d just been thrown the best surprise birthday party ever. Nainai copied her, and they hugged one another.
“We’re going shopping tonight, Lacey,” Nainai said. “I need to get me some new duds to show off just how hot this bod still is after all these years. I’m taking at least one stud home with me from this trip. And you could get yourself a few as well. After all,” she said, eyes twinkling, “you inherited my looks.”
Lacey laughed. Her grandmother would just have to come along for her mini interview with Ginger Rose. Tonight, she’d mix a little pleasure with business. “Come on, Nainai. Let’s check in, then check out Vegas.”
*
The Lings were happy to learn that Bus Number 11 was an open-top double-decker. At Nainai’s insistence, and with a kind driver’s help, Lacey took her grandmother up the narrow, winding staircase, leaving her wheelchair stashed in a small storage compartment on the main level of the bus. Soon the women were cruising the neon tunnel of the Jewel of the Nevada Desert, feeling quite literally as though they were on top of the world. They passed casinos she’d only ever seen on TV, a few odd museums, and crowds lining sidewalks. She saw advertisements for every form of entertainment from a monster truck rally to the downright racy.
Victor, for his part, hovered beside them, head constantly swiveling, a permanent scowl on his face. “Ugh,” he said, breaking into Lacey’s thoughts as she exclaimed over the sights. “Be glad you’ve only got mortal eyes for this trip. I’m going to have to ask The Big Man if he can put a filter on my sight while we’re here.”
“Lighten up, Victor,” Lacey said. “This is fun.”
“Only because you can’t see beyond the surface,” he muttered. “Though, maybe I could get in on that monster
truck gig. Where are we going, by the way?”
Lacey rolled her eyes. “This is just a tour, but if you insist on us having some destination, I was planning on at least stopping by Zigmund and Ross’s show. You know, the one you thought had lions?”
Victor gave her a wry smile. “You know, before I died, I could have given you a tiger show to put the rest of them to shame. I even had the ring ready. We could have come to Vegas to get married, had I known how bad you wanted to visit this place.”
Lacey’s cheeks grew warm. She still hadn’t gotten over how devoted he was to her. Despite their vast differences, he was still able to pull at her heartstrings with his genuine love for her. Every now and again she’d let her thoughts drift to wondering whether she would have let him talk her into marrying him; he’d made his intentions more than clear. And yet, the more time passed, the more she realized he just wasn’t what she wanted. She’d told him as much, but for some unfathomable reason, he couldn’t seem to take the hint. So most of the time, she just avoided thinking about it.
“No,” she said, “my family would have killed me if I’d done a Vegas wedding.”
“I wouldn’t have killed you,” Nainai said. “This place is amazing. I hear they have great senior communities here. And it doesn’t have that blasted cold of where you live. How about we move down here? Think of it, granddaughter—year-round sunshine and endless handsome men to pamper us. That’s a retirement plan I could live with.”
Lacey smiled and Victor laughed. “Your grandma is awesome. The two of you are real rays of sunshine in this hole.”
“Thanks, Victor,” Lacey said.
“So,” he said, sitting next to her in mid-air, “where are we going tonight? Because if you’re hitting any clubs or casinos, I might need to sit it out. And given that I’m your guardian angel, that’d be rough.”
Lacey rolled her eyes, but smiled just the same. “Victor, we do intend to take advantage of at least some of what Las Vegas has to offer. Please don’t take that personally. But I promise I’ll be good.”
“And careful?”
She rolled her eyes again.
“You’re really cute when you do that,” he said. “Actually… you’re always cute. You really should have married me, you know.” He gave her a smile that said he was teasing, but they both knew he meant it.
“Yes, Victor, I’ll be careful. I’ve had my fill of devils and demons in these past few months. For now, we’re just enjoying the sites. But, I do intend to stop in at the Zigmund and Ross show, this evening. Cathy got us tickets for tonight, since she knew we’d arrive early enough.” She glanced at her phone. “We’ve still got a couple of hours before the show, so just relax. Close your eyes if you have to.”
Victor grimaced. “You’ve never really dealt with devils. You don’t want to deal with them. There are reasons they’re under hard lock and key, even if Legion is still permitted to roam the earth. But seriously, Lace, if you could see the darkness of this place, you’d be on the first flight back to Seattle.”
Lacey raised her eyebrows. “Well I can’t, so I’ll count my blessings and focus on showing Nainai a good time.”
“Is Victor telling us we shouldn’t go see those Australian guys, Lacey? Because if he is, you can tell him I intend to be up on stage with them.”
Lacey gasped. “Grandma!”
“Don’t ‘Grandma’ me, baby girl. This old gal knows a thing or two.”
“Well this ‘baby girl’ knows a couple things herself,” Lacey said. “We’ll have a good time without humiliating ourselves.”
“What?” Nainai asked. “You think something like a wheelchair is going to stop me from throwing a few dollar bills or dancing?”
Lacey shivered slightly. “Let’s not even go there, Nainai. Now please, let’s just enjoy the ride. We’ll be at the Zigmund and Ross show soon enough. I’m sure they wouldn’t even notice if you growled at them.”
“That’s my girl,” Nainai whooped, clapping a hand on Lacey’s knee. “Vegas, the fun has arrived!”
Lacey smiled big, not only excited for the setting, but the start of her investigation. The neon hot-pink lights of The Flamingo came into view, lighting up brilliantly in the shape of feathers. One of the classics, yet this was the first time she’d seen it in person.
The bus soon came to a stop. Looking over the edge of the upper deck, Lacey spotted a handful of people down below, waiting to board. One stood out. A statuesque blonde, her hair in a high ponytail, wearing a shiny red crop top and matching booty shorts, legs clad in fishnet. A carry-all over a bare shoulder, she lazily took the last drag from a cigarette, before crushing it beneath her heel.
“That’s the woman you’re interviewing?” Victor said, hovering beside Lacey.
“Who else would be named Ginger Rose?” Lacey said, knowing it was true.
(END OF SAMPLE. You can buy BlackJack Magic Murder at this Amazon link HERE.)
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Table of Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
