by Stacia Kane
Amazing, how smoothly she lied. Even more amazing how smoothly she told the truth, letting Majowski know exactly what hadn’t happened the night before. Even with his eyes closed he could picture her face, smiling like she didn’t have a care in the world. Odd that it should comfort him, but it did. She wasn’t bothered by what had just happened with Nielsen or what had just happened with him—or, well, if she was she wasn’t showing it, which meant he could pretend she wasn’t.
“So where are you?” she went on, after a pause. “Oh. Um, sure, I think that’s fine. We’ll—yeah. See you soon.”
Another few seconds passed before her footsteps approached. Her fingers touched his shoulder. “He’s at the Spyglass, waiting for us. You think you’re ready to get moving?”
No. No, he was not ready. In fact, he was starting to be kind of comfortable there on the floor, almost like he could fall asleep. The last thing he wanted to do was go anywhere else.
But he didn’t have the luxury of being not ready, or of staying there until he stopped feeling like he was stuffed with sand. So he forced his head to nod. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”
He managed to stand, braced against the wall for a moment, gritting his teeth at the pain in his muscles, the weakness of them. Then he let go and staggered down the hall.
Chapter 7
He ended up giving her the keys, because as much as he hated letting someone else drive the Dart, he hated the thought of crashing it even more. And she did fine, like he’d expected her to.
At least, she seemed to do fine. The sun hurt his eyes despite his sunglasses—they were always oversensitive to light after the beast used them—and he was so fucking exhausted that he couldn’t pay attention. He hovered somewhere on the edge of sleep, his mind half-occupied by dreams but still aware that he was in his car, riding down busy streets that smelled of exhaust and heat. He’d think he was in the middle of a conversation with someone and then snap back to reality and realize he wasn’t saying a word, that neither he nor Ardeth was actually speaking.
Because they weren’t, aside from her brief offer to bandage his hands and his mumbled refusal. He didn’t know if she was being quiet to let him rest, or because she was scared, or because she was trying to figure out how to get the hell away from him as soon as possible. She didn’t look afraid; she looked perfectly content, occasionally singing along to the Velvet Underground on the car’s stereo and tapping her fingers on the wheel.
She looked adorable, actually, but he knew her well enough by then to know that she was pretty good at hiding her feelings. Maybe she was scared and didn’t want him to know, afraid of what reaction that might get. Maybe he didn’t want to know. He definitely didn’t want to talk. Explaining the beast wasn’t going to be fun.
Finally they arrived at the Spyglass, one of the older, seedier hotel-casinos on the outskirts of the city. Mostly a front; Doretti owned it through a proxy, and kept it solely as a way to funnel cash, as far as Speare knew. Which meant that unless Majowski had a gambling problem or had a thing for blue-rinsed ladies, neither of which Speare thought was true, his presence there was probably not good news.
Ardeth cut the engine. “You ready to move, Elvis? Or—”
“Don’t call me that.”
Her soft laugh washed over him. “I guess you’re feeling better, then. Come on, he’s inside.”
Getting out of the car felt like climbing K2: a painful, difficult ordeal he might not survive. He did it anyway. Spots erupted before his eyes as he followed her to the entrance—not the beast’s spots, thankfully; it would probably be quiet for a good six hours at least after having a chance to play, however brief that chance had been—but he managed to see well enough to navigate.
The interior was just as bright as it had been outside, but with the added distraction of neon in various hideous colors and the torturous cacophony of voices, along with bells, tumblers, slot machines, chips, and tokens. The smell of old booze and sweat made his stomach shift uneasily.
Ardeth took his arm. “Want a drink? Water, soda, whiskey?”
It hurt his head to even make the decision. “Whiskey. Lots of it.”
She led him through the maze of damaged hopes to the bar—a dimmer area beyond his squinted eyes and dark lenses—where she squeezed his arm and let go. He stood there, as patiently as a child and feeling about as capable, wishing to God he’d had just a half an hour more. He needed to be able to think, damn it. To be able to listen to what Majowski had to say and ask questions. As it was, he was useless. He’d never not been given time to recover like this before. It made him want to hit someone.
Ardeth’s fragrance reached him just a second or two before she did; the beast was asleep, for the most part, so its sensory ability slept as well. She pressed a cold glass into his hand. “Here.”
Whiskey. Hopefully it would help. He gulped it down, glad that it burned his throat because at least that meant he was feeling something normal, and shuddered slightly when it exploded into warmth in his stomach. “Thanks.”
Instead of answering, she plucked the now-empty glass from his hand and replaced it with another. “Make this one last, okay? Let’s go up.”
He didn’t want to make it last, actually. He wanted to drink it all and then get another. In fact, he wanted to buy a bottle and drink it all in one long draw. That might even get him drunk, though he didn’t think it would be enough to forget the look on her face as the beast held her captive against the wall. “Up?”
“He’s waiting for us on the roof, he said.”
Shit. Not in the offices, then. This wasn’t just a meeting. He closed his eyes for a minute and tried to steel himself, to gather as much strength as he could. No matter what was about to happen, he didn’t want Majowski to know just how bad a shape he was in. And he especially didn’t want Ardeth to know just how close to falling apart he felt. He wanted—needed—her to think he was recovering well, that he was zipping along and would be back to his old self any second. She was being very kind, so far, but “pitiful” wasn’t his favorite look.
Neither was “douchebag,” but he was keeping the sunglasses on just the same. Once they’d wound their way through that hideous clanging lobby, the staff-only section of the place was lit by daylight-bright fluorescents lining the halls. Their dull buzzing was like a chain saw in his head. He should have grabbed a third drink for the walk, and for the ride in the staff elevator that accessed the roof and was just as bright.
Then into the sun. It was never going to end. Luckily Majowski waited in the shade cast by the enormous air-conditioning unit and water tanks. Unluckily, the grim look on his face came close to matching the one Speare knew he sported himself, and Majowski’s words when they reached him didn’t help. “Come see.”
Uh-oh.
The view from the rooftop would have pleased him any other day, a different look at the sprawling oasis of sin that Bugsy Siegel had dreamed of seventy years before. The sprawling oasis of sin that was his own hometown, in his blood. All those buildings, monuments to both the soaring ambitions and the base instincts of humanity.
None of that held his attention, though. Not when he smelled the sickly sweet odor of death in the air, and not when he spotted the legs on the sticky flat roof, tucked up against the low retaining wall.
Just legs. Nothing else. Fuck, that was not what he needed to see at that moment, not when he already felt like shit. He squeezed the glass in his hand so hard, he was afraid it might shatter.
“The manager found these here about forty minutes ago,” Majowski said. He might have looked pale, too, but the sun was so bright it was impossible to tell. Even Ardeth looked a little greenish, although again, the disembodied limbs on the roof could be responsible for that.
Another swallow of whiskey gave him another shot of artificial strength. “Are they Mercer’s?”
Majowski shook his head. “We’re not sure whose they are just yet, but we’re sure they weren’t Mercer’s. His driver’s license lists him as
five-nine, and these legs are at least forty-eight inches hip to toe. Mercer’s torso was too long to match them and reach a total height of only five-nine.”
“So we have another victim, is what you’re saying.”
“Looks like it.”
“And we don’t know who it is.”
“Nope.”
Touching one of the legs wasn’t a good idea. He knew it wasn’t. The beast had muttered and shifted a little when they approached the legs, probably because death was in the air, but so far it was quiet, just like he needed it to be. He was too weak to fight it off again, or at least, it wasn’t a chance he wanted to take.
But he knew what sorts of things could turn up in Vegas hotels, too, and legs were far from the weirdest he’d ever heard of. “I don’t smell the incense. Maybe it’s not connected to our case.”
“Maybe,” Majowski said. “But Doretti’s on the phone doing a head count—so to speak—and the staff is checking registrations and searching the place top to bottom to see if there are any other parts. Meanwhile, well, you’re the expert on that demon-sword thing, so I don’t know if you can tell if that’s what was used here.”
Yeah, that was what he figured was going to be asked of him. Damn it. “Yeah, just—”
“Can you give us a second, Chuck? I forgot to tell him something.” Ardeth interrupted Speare so smoothly it barely seemed like an interruption at all, taking his arm as she did. When he glanced at her she was smiling as if cheerfulness were an Olympic sport and she was desperate to bring home the gold.
Majowski looked from her, to him, to the glass in Speare’s hand. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Majowski seemed like he wanted to say something else; it hovered for a long moment before his face cleared and he smiled at Ardeth. “Remind me never to let you cook for me.”
“It’s not one of my greatest skills,” Ardeth said breezily, hauling Speare from his lean on the wall—or tugging at him; he did the heavy lifting—and pulling him back around the air conditioner.
The shade helped a little, but not much. Especially when the second they were out of sight she turned to him. “Are you up for this?”
No. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t—” She pressed her lips together. “You don’t have to do this. It can wait.”
God, she was killing him. The concern in her eyes, visible even through his sunglasses, was killing him. “I don’t think it can. He’s going to have to call the other cops soon. Laz is going to be here soon.”
“Speare, you’re—”
“I’m doing it.” He said it hard enough, cold enough, to let her know he wasn’t going to argue about it anymore.
And instantly regretted it when hurt flashed across her face. She got over it fast, but he still hated seeing it.
“Okay,” she said. “Fine. You want to do this to yourself, you go ahead.”
Damn it, did she not see that he had to do it? He didn’t have a choice. He’d never had a choice when it came to this sort of thing. “It’s not—I’ll be fine. Okay?”
She shrugged. “Whatever. Come on.”
Her hand touched the edge of the unit as she prepared to go back around it, but he stopped her with his own. There was one other thing he had to say, and he had to say it now, fast, in case touching the leg knocked him out—or worse—and he couldn’t say it. “Ardeth…I’m sorry.”
“Hey, don’t apologize to me. I’m not the one—”
“No. Not about that.” She was really not making this easier, and he wasn’t good at it to begin with. “About—what happened in the hall. What it said to you. That wasn’t me. I didn’t want it to—”
“Of course you didn’t,” she said. “You don’t need to apologize.”
Was she crazy, or was she joking, or what? “Yeah, I do. What happened—”
“Is something we’ll talk about later, if you want.” She touched his arm, just a light brush of her hand, but it seemed to spread through his entire body. “Okay? But I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“That really doesn’t help me much.”
“Then we’ll talk about that later, too. Let’s get this over with first, shall we?”
Without waiting for him to reply, she sailed back into the sunlight, back to Majowski. He couldn’t see her face, but the breezy tone of her voice gave him a good idea of what was on it. “All done. Thanks, Chuck.”
Majowski scanned Speare’s face, presumably looking for some evidence that everything was fine and presumably not finding it, because his own expression didn’t clear at all. “You sure?”
“Yes,” Speare said. He eyed one of the legs like it was a bomb—which it might be, at least figuratively, and made his way toward it. The glass of whiskey was still in his hand, about half full; he gulped some of it down, thankful again for the warmth, and set the glass beside him. Time to get it over with.
Yep, definitely a demon-sword victim. He knew that as soon as he knelt by the thing, offering up one last desperate prayer that the beast would stay silent. Or at least that it wouldn’t get so excited that it would try to bust out again.
He touched the leg. Darkness flew up his arm, another whisper of evil and sickness he didn’t need. The beast woke with a growl. For a second he hung in the balance, caught between his roiling stomach, the beast, and the need to keep it together. More pain as he tightened his muscles—God he was sore—but it worked. He pulled his hand away, the beast subsided, and it was done. All he had to do now was quiet his breathing. “Yeah. Demon-sword. This is another one.”
“Shit,” Majowski said. “Whoever this guy is who’s doing this, he’s one hell of a go-getter, isn’t he?”
Speare’s weak laugh surprised him, but it felt good. “Yeah, he’s pretty goal oriented.”
“If only we knew what his goal was,” Ardeth said. Something in the way she said it, though. He turned to look at her, leaning against the wall with a frown on her face. Not an unhappy frown; a focused frown, the kind of frown that said she had an idea and she didn’t like it much.
He was just about to ask her what she was thinking when the access door opened. Laz had arrived, and if Ardeth’s frown was one of concentration, Laz’s expressed nothing but fury. “What the fuck is going on here?”
“It’s another victim of the same—” Majowski started, but Laz cut him off with a look.
“I know it’s another victim of the same killer,” he snapped. “You think I haven’t figured that out? I want to hear from you, Lazaro. What’s—what is she doing here?”
Speare spoke before Ardeth could. “This is Ardeth, Laz. She’s—”
“I know who she is.” Laz’s expression didn’t brighten one bit. “Mickey Coyle’s girl. The thief. What’s she doing here, in my business?”
What the hell? Since when did Laz speak to a woman—any woman—like that? What was his problem with Ardeth? Speare forced himself back to his feet. “She’s helping. She’s here because I asked her to be here.”
“You look like shit,” Laz said. “What’s wrong with you?”
Speare glared at him. At least he could still glare. Laz couldn’t see his eyes, but he figured the set of his face made it clear enough. “Something didn’t agree with me. Maybe it was you being an asshole.”
Laz’s eyes narrowed. Speare tensed but refused to look away. Ardeth had dealt with enough that morning. She didn’t need attitude from Laz, too, and if Laz said one more word about her, Speare was going to grab her and go. And fuck Laz and his investigation—like Speare didn’t have anything else on his plate at that moment. The fact that Laz had been almost like a father to him—maybe was his father—didn’t seem to matter so much at that moment.
Luckily, it did matter to Laz, or he just realized he was being very unlike his usual self. He turned to Ardeth, his face arranging itself into calmer lines. “I’m sorry. I’m very upset. This—Paulie Abramo is missing. This is his leg. I’m sure of it.”
“Paulie?” Fuck. He knew Paulie. P
aulie was a big guy, too, taller even than Speare—the only person he knew who was—and wider. A tank of a man. Starting to run to fat as he neared his midforties, but a hell of a tough guy. The killers had gotten to him, too? Who were they, that they could get the drop on Theodore and Paulie?
Laz nodded. His eyes, always tinged with a sort of droopy sadness even when he was celebrating, turned full basset hound. “He’s been with me twenty years. Almost since the beginning. A great man, a loyal man.”
“May his soul rise in the Realm of Silver,” Speare said. An automatic response, but no less heartfelt for that. Damn it.
“And may his killers’ souls rise in the realm of the twisted,” Laz added with an audible snarl. “I’m sick of this, Lazaro. I want these bastards caught. I want them—” His gaze cast sideways, toward Ardeth. “Would you excuse us, please?”
Ardeth looked at Speare, who nodded. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll, I’ll go check the view from the other side, I guess.”
Laz nodded. “Thank you.”
She gave Speare one last glance, and left.
The second she reached the opposite wall—quite far, really, quite a long time for Speare to watch her walk away—Laz spun around. “What are you doing with her?”
This again? “Didn’t Majowski tell you? It’s a demon-sword killing these guys. I needed to know who might have one, and Felix—you know Felix—set me up with her, because she was asked to procure one for somebody.” Funny, how he slipped into the language of her profession so quickly; well, he’d heard her use the term so often over the past sixteen hours or so, why wouldn’t he?
“So why is she still here? Why didn’t she just tell you who she got it for and leave?”
“Because she didn’t get one for anybody.” Damn, his glass was almost empty, and wooziness was clouding his vision again. “But listen, there’s more going on here. Last night some men were at my house—not men. I don’t know what they were. They were after me, and they’re not human.”
