Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

by Carrie Vaughn

  “Can’t do that. Sorry.” I stood and went to her side to give her a big hug. “Don’t worry, guys. It’ll all work out. I just know it.”

  I could feel them watching me with worried gazes as I left the bar. Outside, I retrieved my phone from my bag and called the number Dom gave me in case I needed help.

  Chapter 14

  I talked to Dom on my way to the Napoli hotel. My feet in their high heels were starting to hurt with all this running around, and the night was still young. I didn’t think about it.

  “Kitty!” he answered my call with enthusiasm. “Please tell me you’re having a good time.”

  “Yeah, about that. I really need to talk to you, are you busy right now?”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m having a party here in the roof bar. We’re just getting started, you should come over.” It was probably an all-vampire, blood-in-wine-glasses kind of party. I could put up with that. That was how desperate I was.

  “I’ll be right there,” I said.

  “And bring that nice gentleman of yours.”

  “Um, that’s actually what I need to talk to you about. He’s missing.”

  “He’s left you alone in Las Vegas on a Saturday night? What is he, brave or stupid?”

  “It’s a lot more complicated than that,” I muttered. “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  As I left the elevator outside the club, my heart sank a little, because it was a vampire party. I could smell it, an odor that wafted into the hall via the air-conditioning like a hint of perfume. Blood and corpses. A normal person wouldn’t notice it. To me, it was unmistakable. A group of vampires—essentially clean, preserved corpses imbued with life—were imbibing their beverage of choice.

  At the scent of blood, a presence within me stirred. Wolf waking up, turning nose to the air, wondering if we were going on a hunt. Blood meant prey. I paused a moment, took a deep breath, and said no. No hunting here. I was in charge. The fur and claws settled.

  Besides, just because I smelled blood didn’t mean anything was being hunted.

  It didn’t occur to me that the line of people along the hallway was the line waiting to get into Dom’s rooftop nightclub. I stalked right past them, oblivious to the offended stares people were giving me, and headed straight for the door, following the scent of vampires.

  A bouncer stepped in front of me. His bulk filled the doorway. He was white, bald, with a tattoo peeking up from the neckline of his crisp button-up shirt. He glared at me. I almost snarled back.

  “You’ll have to wait in line.”

  A calm breath focused me. “Dom invited me. He’s expecting me.”

  “You’re not on the list,” he said. He wasn’t supernatural. I’d have expected a werewolf or vampire or something to be working for Dom. But he was stereotypical muscle. May not even have known what was going on in there, or that I smelled blood on the air.

  I tried to be reasonable and failed. “You don’t even know my name! How do you know I’m not on the list? Do you even have a list? And aren’t famous people supposed to be able to just, you know, walk in?”

  “You’re famous?” Bald Guy said flatly.

  That was exactly the smackdown I needed. I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “My name’s Kitty Norville. I spoke with Dom a few minutes ago, and he invited me here. And I have absolutely no way to prove it to you.”

  A second bouncer had edged over to listen. I didn’t think he thought I was a threat. Rather, I was probably the most entertaining thing to happen all evening. Oh, the humanity.

  This guy quirked a smile and said to his colleague, “I’ll go check.” He must have felt sorry for me.

  “Thank you!” I called after him.

  Bald Guy just kept glaring at me.

  “We have a dress code here,” he said after a few long moments, looking me up and down. Like I wasn’t freaking good enough. As if I needed any more reminders as to why I hated vampire-run nightclubs.

  “This is my wedding dress! Are you telling me it’s not up to dress code?” I said. I glanced at the line of people winding away from the door, trying to figure out why I didn’t measure up in this guy’s opinion. The men wore silk shirts, pressed slacks, and polished Italian leather shoes. The women wore lots of black, lots of makeup, lots of jewelry, and very high heels.

  That was it, I guessed. My two-inch heels weren’t high enough. Bastards.

  But then the nice bouncer reappeared and said, “She’s in. Dom okays it.”

  I gave him my best smile. But I glared at Bald Guy, who glared back with equal enmity. “Thank you.”

  I left the line full of acrobats in five-inch heels behind.

  The bar was at the top of the Napoli’s tallest wing. Glass walls on all sides offered views of the Strip. The place didn’t need its own light show, because how could it compete with all the glitz and neon outside? Instead, the decoration inside was modern and tasteful, with comfortable designer chairs and sofas in gray and chrome, black tiled floor, a black and chrome bar, and lots of mirrors that gave the place a mazelike appearance. Best of all, it was isolated from the eternal, headache-inducing clinking of slot machines.

  The party was in full swing. A good mix of music played at exactly the right volume on a killer sound system. I couldn’t spot the speakers. I was glad I’d kept my new dress on, because if I’d had on anything else I’d have been underdressed. The women wore sleek and sexy cocktail dresses, the men wore suits. I caught glimpses of expensive watches and jewelry, designer shoes and makeup jobs. Every head of hair was perfectly styled.

  If I had to make a guess, I’d have said about a quarter of the people in the place were vampires. It was hard to tell when everyone was mingled. Many vampires, especially the ones who live in cities as part of a Family under a Master like Dom, cultivate incredibly sexy manners and appearances. A roomful of vampires is like a convention for the models in an issue of Vanity Fair. The fashion and haughtiness are overwhelming. Here’s the big secret: they do this for a reason. They attain levels of irresistible sexiness because it lures people. It’s bait for warm bodies. They start a nightclub, make sure they have a reputation for trendiness and sexiness, then wait for it to fill up with nubile young humans for them to pick over. Quite a system, really. I could probably work out some ecologically correct ratio of predators to prey for a healthy ecosystem, apply it to the room, and figure out how many vampires were here. I filed that away for a future project.

  As I cut through the crowd trying to find Dom, I could spot some of the vampires: they looked at me, following me with their gazes as I passed, because they could tell what I was and they were surprised to see me. As Dom had said: no werewolves in Vegas. I didn’t like being that unique.

  I didn’t sense a single lycanthrope in the room. It made me feel lonely. Even cities like D.C. and New York had werewolves.

  “Kitty! Welcome!” Dom called from where he held court in a big semicircular booth between the bar and a bank of windows. I waved and trundled over.

  “Hey, sorry about the mix-up out front,” he said. “I didn’t get a chance to get your name on the list.”

  “That’s okay, I think this is the first time I’ve ever been to a nightclub that had a list in the first place.”

  Vampires surrounded him, fawning like courtiers. A red-haired woman leaned against him, tucked under his arm, and seemed half asleep. Two other women lounged arm in arm with each other, and one of those had her foot in another guy’s lap. He was massaging it absently. Another man smoked a cigarette, which struck me as odd, because vampires don’t breathe. One of the men stood, leaning against the end of the booth, with a vantage of the room. He held himself like a bodyguard. His lip curled as he studied me, head to toe.

  The table before them was covered with empty tumblers and wine glasses. The glass Dom held was filled with a thick red liquid that I was pretty sure wasn’t cabernet.

  He introduced me to his entourage. “This is Kitt
y. The werewolf.”

  “Hmm, how novel,” the redhead said.

  One of the women, a brunette in a rust-colored dress, extricated herself from her two admirers and leaned forward. “Kitty? With the radio show? Oh, my God, I’m such a big fan. I knew you were in town, but I had no idea you’d be here. This is so cool.” She looked on me with a hungry gaze. I couldn’t tell if it was awe or, well, hunger.

  “Everyone move over, let Kitty sit here with me,” Dom said.

  “Actually, I’m okay here on the end,” I said, quickly perching on the edge of the booth before anyone could argue. I needed an escape route that wouldn’t require me climbing over the table if I got twitchy. “Dom, I really need to talk to you—”

  “Can I offer you something?” Dom said, indicating his glass of not-cabernet.

  My stomach flopped, even though part of me would have been happy with the offering. I was walking on two legs now, not four. No blood. Definitely not human blood, and vampires didn’t drink any other kind. I didn’t want to cross that line. “I’ll have a martini,” I said. Dom signaled to a waiter and made the order. “Look, about Ben—”

  “Sometimes I miss it,” said the brunette, settling back with her companions. “A really good martini? With olives? Hmm.”

  “You don’t miss it a bit,” said the man with her. “At least, you wouldn’t give up this to get it back.” He nuzzled her, and she giggled.

  Oh, please. Maybe I’d get their attention if I jumped on the table and snarled.

  I leaned forward, conspiratorially, and said to Dom, “Can I ask a really gauche question?”

  “I’d be charmed if you did.”

  “Um. . . where?” I pointed at the goblet. “Please don’t tell me you’ve got blood donors in the next room hooked up to IV tubes.”

  He looked at me, half a smile on his lips, and didn’t tell me.

  This had probably definitely been a mistake. Dom wouldn’t know anything about Ben and seemed more interested in his party than anything else. The cell phone in my handbag hadn’t rung yet, and I resisted an urge to check again for missed calls. “At least tell me nobody’s dying for this.”

  “Dead bodies are very bad for tourism, Kitty.”

  They all giggled at that, except the bodyguard vampire, who curled his lip even more. I wanted to knock my head against the table. These weren’t just vampires—they were vapid vampires. Like Dom had collected his followers from the nearest frat and sorority houses. Probably so none of them would be able to out-think him.

  The brunette perked up again. “Hey, whatever happened to that bounty hunter? The one who held you hostage on your own show?”

  Funny she should ask. “He went to jail earlier this year. Manslaughter.”

  She stared. “Whoa. Wicked.”

  This from someone who had to drink human blood to survive. Priceless. My martini arrived, and I smiled into it as I took a sip. The alcohol burning down my throat and hitting my blood fortified me.

  “Dom, Ben’s gone missing. He was taken by a gangster named Faber—”

  “Taken. Like kidnapped?”

  “Probably. Do you know anything about Faber or where they might be holding him?”

  He shrugged expansively, like it was an affection he’d developed to deflect questions. He’d probably been shrugging like that for decades. “I told you, Kitty. I keep to myself and let the rest take care of themselves. It’s a live-and-let-live kind of town. In a manner of speaking.”

  “But you’re supposed to be in charge of this damned town! Don’t you have an ear on the rumor mill? Don’t you know anything?” Rick would have been able to figure this out. Rick would have known exactly what was going on.

  “I know about Faber, and I know he isn’t into kidnapping. Are you sure your guy didn’t just, I don’t know—ditch you or something?”

  Ignore it. I counted to ten. Even if I could take claws to his throat, the vampire wouldn’t die from it.

  “Kitty,” Dom said, serious now. “If Ben’s missing, if someone took him, I think you’re looking in the wrong place. You know who in this town has it in for werewolves?”

  “Who?” I said, glaring, and thinking about the gun show at the Olympus. Wondering if Sylvia and Boris had figured out that Ben’s a werewolf.

  “Balthasar and that crowd over at the Hanging Gardens.”

  The statement made me pause. Vegas didn’t have werewolves because of Balthasar’s troupe. They were the dominant lycanthropes and kept the others out. Had Balthasar done something to Ben? I shook my head. “Security video showed him with one of Faber’s henchmen.”

  “Who maybe isn’t working for Faber.”

  “No, I’ve talked to Balthasar and he hasn’t been anything but decent to me. If he was after Ben, why not go after me, as well?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t explain how those guys work. You’ve seen them yourself, they’re a little odd.”

  That I could agree with. I couldn’t imagine shape-shifting almost every day like that. Whatever Balthasar said to explain it, it couldn’t be healthy. Not to mention the S&M erotica portion of the show. Maybe I was just being judgmental. I didn’t understand the lifestyle, and maybe it scared me. But I didn’t want to think that Balthasar had anything to do with Ben’s disappearance.

  Dom had given me everything he was going to give me. Maybe he was right pointing me at Balthasar, maybe he wasn’t. But the conversation was finished, and I was itching to leave.

  I had one more question, and I might not get another chance to talk to Dom like this. “What do you know about Odysseus Grant?”

  Dom looked confused for a moment, and I frowned with disappointment. Then he called to the bodyguard type. “Hey, Sven—Odysseus Grant. He that magician over at the Diablo?”

  “I believe so, sir,” the bodyguard Sven said.

  Dom smiled at me. “Odysseus Grant. Magician over at the Diablo.”

  I nearly growled. “I know that. I caught his show.”

  “Is he any good?” Dom said.

  “Yeah, he is. I guess that means you don’t know anything about rumors that some of his magic is real. You know, he pulls a rabbit out of his hat and he really pulls it out of thin air instead of relying on trapdoors and sleight of hand.”

  “That’s a good rumor,” he said. “I like it. You think it’s true?”

  This conversation was making me want to gnaw on a sofa.

  “I don’t know,” I said through gritted teeth. I needed another martini. “I thought you might. So much for that.”

  “Maybe we should go to the show and see for ourselves. Does that sound like fun?” the brunette said. They all nodded and murmured, yes, it sounded like fun, but maybe another time, like next week, or month, or something.

  I set my elbow on the table and rested my chin on my hand. I put on my cheerful voice. “So what’s it really like being a vampire in Vegas?”

  I should never have asked, because it took them forty minutes of chatter to say it was one big party, with a constant stream of fresh blood, literally. I finished a second martini and let the haze numb me.

  Most conversations I’d ever had with vampires were frustrating, because vampires were so in love with being inscrutable and mysterious, it was hard to get any information out of them. They generally loved secrets and power and therefore loved letting me know they had secrets. I could usually tell when they were hiding something from me because they came right out and gloated about it.

  My conversation with Dom and his flunkies was frustrating, as expected, but for an entirely different reason: because I was convinced that Dom didn’t know a damn thing about anything. When I got back to Denver, I was going to corner Rick and ask him: where the hell had Dom come from, and how had he lasted this long?

  I started to get up. “Thanks for the party, Dom, but I really should be—”

  “I have a question for you,” Dom said. I froze when he pointed at me. “Why’d you put Harry Burger on your show? That clown doesn’t deserve any air
time.” It took me a moment to register the name and context: the politician who came on the show to push his anti-psychic legislation. He hadn’t managed to convince much of anyone that the concept was even feasible. But he was enough of a character it made him interesting.

  “That’s what I do on my show,” I said. “Drag this stuff into the open to try and figure out what it means. Here’s someone who thinks psychics in casinos are a problem, and I wanted to talk about it. You run a casino, what do you think? Are psychics in casinos a problem? Are they cheating?”

  The vampires all giggled, except for Dom, who shook his head sadly. “It wouldn’t surprise me if it happens now and then. But I wouldn’t call it a problem.”

  I knew I should have dragged Dom on the show. We could have had a real debate. I grinned, thinking of Ben and his lycanthropic senses giving him an edge at poker. That wasn’t exactly cheating, but maybe Burger had a point. “Have you ever cheated in a casino?”

  He gave me a look like I should know better. “Let’s say we do have powers that give us an edge. Maybe we win at poker a little more than we ought to. Maybe we’re a little better at counting cards. Hell, theoretically someone with a little telekinesis could rig craps or roulette.”

  “Do powers like that really exist?” I said.

  A couple of the vampires had started to look over the crowd in the bar with glazed, hungry expressions. Like they were searching for the weak members of the herd. Suddenly, the bubbly brunette climbed over the two of us blocking her way out. She didn’t say a word, not even an apology, when she stepped on my foot. We watched, rapt, as she made a beeline for the bar and the tall, dark, Mediterranean-featured man taking a sip of what looked like whiskey from a tumbler. She stalked to his front, focused her gaze on his, said something. After that, he only had eyes for her. They left about five minutes later. He’d abandoned a woman—stylish, pretty, in a black cocktail dress and diamond necklace—standing dumbstruck at the bar, jaw dropped, staring after the two of them.

  “She loves her hunts, doesn’t she?” Dom’s redhead said with a purr.