We had all taken seats and the questioning began. Unlike the Directors, I didn’t want to keep my crew in the dark, but I was also a bit worried about providing too much information.
Valerie kept the valkyries away, giving us time to work through things. Since we weren’t being judged in battle, I knew Valerie and her crew were forbidden to read our thoughts, so I didn’t have to worry about that. She’d probably overhear our words, though.
Ah well. That couldn’t be helped. Besides, who was she going to tell?
“Have you ever been bitten by a vampire before?” asked Griff.
“No.”
“What about a wolf?”
“I don’t…” I paused and thought about that. “Actually, more than once over the years, yes. We’ve all taken down a number of them while on the beat. I’ve fought vampires, too, of course, but never been bitten. Werewolves, though? Definitely.”
“But a werewolf bite is not the same as a vampire bite,” Chuck was quick to point out. “Werewolves don’t inject venom.”
Griff gave his partner an appraising look. “It’s a fair point, Charles.”
“I’ve also been hit by tons of magic over the years, Griff,” I stated. “That never turned me into a mage.”
“True.”
“And we all know that I’ve recently had a Joke-Off with a pixie. Again, nothing came of that.” I shook my head and sighed. “No, it was definitely the venom that sparked everything. Possibly the djinn, too. I’m not sure if that played into things any more than just making me disoriented enough to allow the vampire to have a snack.”
Again, though, it brought up the question as to how the djinn was able to mess with my head in the first place. That had never happened before either.
“Do you think the djinn was an uber?” asked Felicia.
“No,” I replied as the answer dawned on me. “I think the djinn was given stronger powers, just like the goblin mage and the werebear.”
“Ah,” said Griff while rubbing his beard. “That makes sense.”
Mr. Mystery was doling out powers to key people in order to make my life miserable. But why? I wasn’t about to ask that question aloud because people would just claim that I’d boned Mrs. Mystery or something. It didn’t matter how many times I’d told them that I didn’t do that kind of thing, they still made the assumption.
“Did you bone Mrs. Mystery, Ian?” asked Jasmine.
So much for that.
“No, I did not bone Mrs. Mystery,” I answered dryly. “Or, if I did, I didn’t know it was Mrs. Mystery. I’m pretty careful about that sort of thing, as you know.”
“My assumption is that we have another ubernatural who is bent on destroying you in a way that is not so direct,” announced Griff, clearly ignoring the side conversation. “But why this person would go out of their way to make you stronger is beyond my ability to understand. It would seem to me that weakening you is far more sensible.”
I crossed my legs and flicked a lint ball off my knee.
“Exactly what I’m thinking, Griff.”
“Maybe the guy thought it’d make you weaker?” suggested Warren. We all looked at him. “Well, think about it. If you wanted to take a guy out, you’d just kill him, right?”
“But a bite wouldn’t kill him,” remarked Chuck. “In fact…” He slowly looked up at me. “In fact,” he said again, “a vampire injecting venom is for the purpose of controlling the victim. He wasn’t trying to kill you, Chief. He wanted you as his slave.”
“Ew,” I choked.
“Not that kind of slave, Chief.”
“Oh, right.”
A slave? To do what? Comb his hair? Help him pick out nice suits? I was good at that, but it seemed like a big risk just to get a personal shopper. But what else would a vampire need a slave for? They already had everything.
I was being stupid.
He wanted me to serve his nefarious intentions. I was strong. I was fast. I healed quickly. Basically, I was a weapon, and if whoever this guy was wanted to cause some major damage, he’d have to…
A thought struck.
“So the vampire who bit me would have to be the guy trying to lord over me, right?” I was staring at Chuck.
“Yeah.”
“But he seemed so freaked out when I turned on him.”
“That doesn’t surprise me, Chief,” Chuck said. “Vampires aren’t supposed to do the old venom trick anymore, but imagine doing it and finding out that the person you bit can rip you in two? It’s like his venom failed to put you under his spell. In fact, all it really accomplished was building him an enemy that was stronger than he could ever hope to be.”
“But the goblin and the djinn and the werebear,” I said, feeling confused. “They had power boosts, too.”
“That’s because the infused venom will improve your power,” Chuck explained. “I’m guessing this guy didn’t know all the powers you already had. The weird thing is that it’s also supposed to have made you loyal to him. Clearly, that didn’t happen.”
Rachel leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees.
“Are you saying that Spanx didn’t tell us who the vampire is because he was really covering for him?”
“Possibly,” Chuck replied with a shrug. “It could also be that he genuinely doesn’t know.”
This new bit of information put us all into thought. If the vampire was really doing all this through a bite, why wouldn’t we have seen marks on Spanx’s neck? And the same with the djinn. I saw his neck clear as day before I ripped through it. There were no marks.
“Serena,” I asked, “were there any holes on Smokey’s neck?”
“Ian,” warned Rachel.
“Oh, sorry. I mean the werebear’s neck.”
Serena and Warren shared a look and then both shook their heads.
“Are there any other places that—”
“You have no marks on your neck either, Chief,” Felicia noted, pointing at me.
“Because I heal quickly, remember?”
Felicia face-palmed. “Right. Sorry.”
“Any large vein will do,” Serena stated.
The only way we could know for sure is if we got in touch with Portman at the morgue. We couldn’t do that from down here, though. There was no connectivity. But even if we could verify that it was the vampire who bit me, how would we find him? Vegas wasn’t huge, but it was big enough for a vampire to hide in. Granted, he was going out of his way to pester me, so eventually we’d find him. My worry was how much damage he’d be able to do before then.
There was one lead we had, though.
It may have been a slip of the tongue, but Spanx said he was down here on the goblins level when a wizard contacted him. Goblins were known for keeping records of things when it involved agreements—verbal or otherwise. While it was definitely a long shot, it could just be that someone on level six knew the identity of Mr. Mystery.
I knew it was a risk, but my gut said it was time I spoke to Lucy Für.
Chapter 22
“Wait,” said Rachel after I’d told her my plan, “why would you want to speak with Lucy Für? She’s a demon, not a goblin.”
“Yes,” I replied, “but Spanx said that he was going to get paid to make a run on New York-New York. That’s a verbal contract.” I then looked up and pursed my lips. “Hell, maybe he even got a written one. I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Regardless, there was a contract, and that means demons are involved.”
Rachel seemed taken aback by this. “Huh?”
“He is correct,” said Griff. “Contractual agreements are the domain of demons, large or small.”
“What’s the size of the demon have to do with it?” asked Chuck.
Griff appraised his life partner as if judging the man’s intellect. The sigh that followed was one of those good-thing-he’s-pretty kind of sighs.
“I was speaking about the size of the contract, Charles.”
“Ohhh…right.”
“At any rate,” Gri
ff continued, “the majority of people aren’t aware of it, but demons oversee every agreement.” He looked studiously from face to face. “Every agreement.”
I’d known about this because of the notes left to me by Chief Michaels, the man I replaced as the head of the Las Vegas PPD. He’d been my boss for a couple of years, but it wasn’t until he’d handed over his notes that I learned a lot more about the happenings in the world…and the Netherworld.
You would have thought the entire demon thing would be common knowledge to the supernatural community, but that would be like expecting everyone to know the ins and outs of the legal system in Dubai. If you were a lawyer in Dubai, you’d know, but if you were just some schmuck living on a farm in Iowa, you’d have no idea. Granted, this was a little different because demons lording over contracts applied to everyone, whereas the legal system in Dubai only applied to people living or vacationing there. The advanced level of secrecy over this wrinkle in the contract code was because people would generally freak out if they knew that demons kept tabs on all contracts. Folks were terrified enough of attorneys. Personally, I would imagine it’d be a good thing if people knew the truth of it. A lot more contracts would be fulfilled, for one, and a lot fewer of them would be ratified in the first place.
I couldn’t be too proud of myself, though. The last time I was here I thought Lucy Für’s actual name was Satan.
The chief didn’t put any details in his notes about that.
“Shall I request that Lucy Für join us,” asked Valerie, “or shall I summon her?”
“Let’s request her first,” I replied. I didn’t know what the difference was between a request and a summons, but Valerie sounded somewhat ominous regarding the summoning option. “Thank you.”
She nodded at me and closed her eyes.
Felicia looked like she was about to say something, but I held my finger to my lips. There was no point in distracting a valkyrie as she was attempting to request the presence of a demon, after all.
The room grew dark after a moment.
I felt the hairs on my neck stand up and a shiver ran through my spine. While I still wasn’t incredibly versed with magic, I knew what was going on. They were working together to build a portal for Lucy Für to travel through.
Even though the demon queen was only down one level, she could not simply take the stairs.
It would destroy her.
The only way she could escape the nine levels was via a mutual portal or a summoning.
Ah…so that’s why Valerie had asked the question before. Whenever one summons an entity from the nine levels, there must be a contract in place or a taking. A taking involves a sacrifice of some sort, making it impossible for the one being summoned to resist. Spanx and his goblin gang, for example, were probably just traveling on contract. The sacrifice option typically happened when those being summoned didn’t want to go. This is why the original uber mage, Reese, had been very unpopular with the demons he used as batteries. They didn’t want to partake in his power play, but they’d had no choice. Essentially, Reese had kidnapped and enslaved them for his own nefarious gain.
Valkyries were a bit different, too, of course. They traveled wherever there was battle. It was part of their gig. But even they could be summoned to fight, should the proper spells be cast.
But Valerie and Lucy were working together on this portal, which told me the demon queen was willing to help.
We all took a step back as a whirlwind of light began spinning faster and faster. There were multiple colors and the sound of air rushing, to the point of sounding like a small tornado.
Then a blinding light flashed and knocked us all to the ground.
I leaned on one elbow and held my opposite hand up to shield my eyes until the light faded away.
Standing there was Lucy Für.
She was massive. I’m talking five werebears big. She also wasn’t what you might call “a looker.” Honestly, the first time I saw her those months ago, I’d have sworn she was a dude.
“Ah, Officer Ian Dex,” she said after nodding at Valerie. “What a pleasant surprise.”
I got to my feet and bowed slightly. “It’s…good to see you again, madam.”
“I’m sure it is.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “Well?”
“Ah, right.” I coughed. “There was a contract taken recently by a goblin named Spanx. He was told to go topside, to a hotel in Las Vegas named—”
“New York-New York,” she interrupted. “What of it?”
“We need to know who the requesting party is on that contract.”
Lucy Für regarded me for a moment. Then she glanced around at the other officers. Finally, she peered at Valerie and grunted.
“You realize that contracts are private matters, yes?”
I nodded.
“Then you must understand that I cannot simply divulge information about the parties involved.”
“He’s causing all sorts of problems topside,” Felicia blurted. “There are already multiple deaths due to what he’s done.”
Lucy Für tilted her head at Felicia. “So?”
“So,” I answered before Felicia could, “it’s only a matter of time before he starts summoning demons.”
I didn’t know that for sure, obviously, but it seemed like a logical step for him. Besides, while demons were quite powerful, it didn’t mean they were incapable of feeling concern as well.
“You know this to be true?” she asked me with a directness that made me feel like I had just taken the stand.
“No,” I admitted, “but after what I’ve experienced, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that he’s capable of it.”
She nodded slowly and she released a long breath.
I only caught wind of a hint of it, but that was enough to make me feel like I’d just face-planted in a pile of horse shit. Everyone on my team winced. Warren gagged.
“What is it?” Lucy Für asked.
“Hmmm?” I said, glaring at everyone. “Nothing. Just the memory of a werebear that Mr. Mystery overtook. It was pretty rough. I’d hate to see him do that to a demon.”
“Ah, right.” Her eyes snapped to mine. “Mr. Mystery?”
“That’s what I’ve been calling him because…” I stopped and looked up at her. “Hold on. You’re not going to tell me that’s really the guy’s name I’m looking for, right?”
It wouldn’t be the first time I’d used a name like that about someone I didn’t know and it had turned out to be correct. Shitfaced Fred came to mind.
“Oh, I see,” she replied with a chuckle. “No, that’s not his name. I thought you may have been discussing someone else.”
I’d have thought that the context would have been sufficient, but who knew how demons thought?
I took a step toward her. “So can you help us or are you going to chance a summoning?”
“You are a clever one, Ian Dex,” Lucy Für said as her lip curled into a grin. I’d say it was an evil grin, but being that she was a demon, that seemed redundant. “The vampire you are seeking is named Sylvester Melbourne.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Lucy,” I said with a big smile.
She laughed. “I’ve been called many things, Ian Dex, but ‘lifesaver’ is not one of them.”
Chapter 23
I took Griff aside, away from the rest of the crew. I didn’t want to have this discussion, but I needed to know where he stood on things.
“Griff,” I said in a measured tone, “how well do you know Director O?”
“We trained together a long time ago.”
“Do you—”
“Ian,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder, “if you’re asking whether or not he has me in his confidence, the answer is no. I respect the man, but I don’t work directly for him. You are the chief of the Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department. Therefore, my loyalties go first to you.” He glanced away for a moment. “No, there’s more to it than that. The fact is that you’re a good man. Rough around the edg
es, yes, but you always strive to do what is right. I’m not saying that O is any different, but let us just say that my sights are more in line with yours than they are with his.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling better about things. “I don’t really trust the Directors at the moment.”
“Nor should you,” he agreed. “Again, I’m certain they have no intentionally negative plans, but the world at their level of power looks incredibly different than it does at our level.”
It was spoken like a man who’d attained much more power than he currently had.
My guess was that he’d been highly ranked back in the war, but those were wounds I wasn’t willing to open.
“You’re a good man, Griff,” I said finally.
“The whole team is, Ian.”
“Yes.”
We walked back into the mix and said our goodbyes to the valkyries and Lucy.
Valerie asked if I would be coming back anytime soon. Rachel answered for me. Let’s just say that The Admiral approved of her response.
It also turned out that Lucy and Valerie were friends who hadn’t had the chance to spend a lot of time together over the last hundred or so years. I couldn’t fathom what they could have had in common, aside from the fact that they were both the leaders of their people. I suppose that was enough.
Only a chief understood what a chief went through, I guess.
“Once we’re back topside,” I announced before we returned, “we need to be very careful about what we say and do. I don’t believe Lydia is able to hear us, but it’s possible. I also don’t know whether or not she feeds information to the Directors about the things we say, but, again, it’s possible.”
“Never did trust her,” Rachel spat.
“She’s not real, Rachel,” I pointed out. “She can only do what her programming allows.” That gave me an idea. “I wonder if Turbo can check things out and see if we’re being tapped or not? I’ll have to have a word with him.”
We all grabbed hands again and I gave a nod to Valerie, signaling that we were ready to go.
She winked in return and blew me a kiss.
Rachel seemed to enjoy that.
Curse of Fangs: An Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Book 6 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department) Page 8