Rachel and I sauntered up to the main desk where there stood a muscular djinn dude. He had tattoos running up his neck, ending along his jawline. It looked kind of like a dark turtleneck sweater.
“What can we do for you two today?” he asked in a voice that sounded like it belonged to a much smaller man. “Lovers paradise, maybe? We’ve got a sale going on for that one. Twenty-five hundred each.” He winked. “That’s a bargain, too. One hour of sensual bliss. Multiple orgasms, orgies, and essentially any desire fulfilled that you can imagine.”
“We’ll take it,” Rachel blurted.
I shook my head and frowned at her. “What? No, we won’t. We’re on the job, remember?”
“Huh?” she replied, blinking at me. “Oh, right. Sorry.”
Seriously, this role-reversal thing was getting a little out of hand. And I honestly didn’t understand it anyway. I mean, I knew why I was acting differently, but what was her deal? She seemed to dig the fact that I was being more demanding, edgy, and riddled with angst, but even when I wasn’t being that way it was like her horny meter was up.
“Right,” I said, taking out my badge and showing it to Muscles Mitch. “We’d like to speak to the elders, please.”
His demeanor changed into one that was a bit more dark.
“What’s this about?”
“Are you an elder?” I asked, knowing for certain that he was not.
“No.”
“Then it’s none of your concern.”
He sneered at me. I didn’t flinch in the slightest. Muscles or not, all it would take was for me to get behind him and I’d tear his ass apart. Again, I realize that sounded wrong.
“Wait here,” he commanded.
I glanced around. “Where else would we go?”
That seemed to confuse the poor fellow. He merely stormed off and went through a back room, hopefully on his way to fetch someone from the elders. If they were involved, though, it could be that he was just snagging some backup.
Just in case, I put my hand on Boomy.
“Be ready for anything, Rachel,” I whispered. “Hopefully this will be peaceful but, as you noted earlier, these guys might be part of the problem.”
Her eyes dulled slightly, which let me know she was preparing herself for a fight. She sometimes did this, or went into a full trance, right before going into a shady situation. It was either that or her hands started glowing. Obviously, she considered that might be construed by the djinn as a direct act of aggression.
I scanned the place and found a number of normals relaxing next to djinn. They all looked to be feeling rather peaceful. That made sense seeing that they were likely experiencing one amazing dream.
Those dreams were pricey, though.
Hell, I would argue that a crack habit would be less taxing on the wallet than a djinn dream addiction. The primary difference was that djinn dreams weren’t likely to kill you or mess with your brain chemistry. In other words, they didn’t cause physical addiction like your average street drugs, but rather they built a dependency on the realization that reality sucked in comparison. Spending an hour on the beach getting blown by ten supermodels was far better than sitting at your crap job doing reports that you couldn’t give two shits about…speaking from a guy’s perspective, anyway.
Just as Rachel’s eyes cleared, Muscles Mitch came back out of the back room and waved us over.
“No funny stuff,” he said with a hint of menace, “and hand me your weapons.”
“No,” I replied without inflection.
He crossed his massive arms and glared at me.
“Then you can’t go back there.”
“We’re officers from the Paranormal Police Department,” I countered. “Unlike standard officers, we do not need a search warrant to enter any building or area of any building that is run or frequented by supernaturals.” I tilted my head and looked up at him. “This isn’t the Netherworld, Mitch.”
He grimaced. “Who’s Mitch?”
“Oh, uh…” I coughed. “Sorry, what was your name again?”
“Milton.”
Muscles Milton worked as well as Muscles Mitch.
“Right. Sorry.” I peered over at Rachel, who had that determined look of a mage who was ready for action. “Anyway, this is the Overworld. The rules are different here, and you should know that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said with a grunt. “I do know that, but I don’t see any reason for you bringing your weapons back there unless you plan to start trouble.”
“I promise you that we won’t start anything,” I replied, though it was unnecessary. He had no way to stop me, aside from using force, but that would be a bad move on his part…even if he didn’t know it. “It’s in the best interest of everyone here that we make this as smooth as possible, so what say you move out of our way and go pump yourself or something?”
He bridled at that remark.
When the pixie in my genetic code wanted to speak, I had to put all my focus on shutting him up; otherwise, he would just blabber on as if I’d been inflicted with Tourette’s. At least my language hadn’t been filthy this time.
With a scowl, Milton stepped aside.
Chapter 28
The back room wasn’t as dark and calming. In fact, it kind of felt like we had walked into a standard office conference room, minus the windows. The table was made of white stone with flecks of metal embedded in it. And the chairs were all the high-back, leather, top-of-the-line models.
This was my kind of place.
At the head of the table sat Elaine Kouross, the current leader of the Vegas Djinn. We’d met on a number of occasions over the years. Of course I’d met with all the heads of the various factions in town. It was part of my job. The only ones I didn’t have to schedule a day each year for were the Directors, but that’s only because I saw them quite often already.
To her left was Ted Preston and to her right sat Glenn Clifford. They were her vice chairmen. Suck-ups, mostly. Each one looking to be her replacement when the time came. Every five years, each faction was required to go through an election phase. Elaine had won the last three elections in a landslide.
She was calm, cool, and seemed to genuinely care about her people.
“Chief Dex,” she said, motioning for me and Rachel to take a seat, “to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit tonight?”
So she was going to play this aloof.
That put me on edge, frankly.
Again, I’d dealt with Elaine more than once and while she was always distant during our discussions, she never came across as being in league with the criminal element. Even when the Halloween fiasco happened, she had been exceedingly helpful in doing all she could to make sure things got resolved smoothly. Of course, that had been an election year.
Still, I’d never known her to be…
I glanced at her for a moment. Maybe Sylvester had gotten to her as well? Maybe he’d gotten to all of them?
That was a dreadful thought.
“I’m sure you heard about the djinn who attacked me earlier?”
Her eyes flashed slightly.
“No,” she said, leaning forward and looking genuinely concerned. “What are you talking about?”
“I was taking a stroll to get a Big Ass Burrito over at Tommy Rocker’s—”
“Love those things,” Glenn interrupted. “Sorry.”
I nodded at him and gave a fake smile. “Anyway, just as I walked onto the parking lot, one of your djinn started trying to sell me on getting a dream.”
“There’s no law against that,” Elaine noted.
“No, there isn’t,” I agreed, “but you may well recall that I’m an amalgamite, which means that your particular skills don’t work on me.”
“Yes, we know.”
“Well, when your employee touched my arm, I started hallucinating.”
Her eyes studied me for a moment. She seemed quite interested in the fact that someone from her group had managed to break my mental wall after a
ll these years.
“Go on,” she said, looking amused.
“He’d had the help of someone else,” I stated coolly. “A vampire.”
All three of them looked like they’d suddenly been slapped.
“That’s right,” I said, nodding at them. “He’s been going around giving enhanced powers to any sucker who will agree to assassinate me. So far we have captured a goblin mage, killed a werebear, killed a werewolf, and killed your former employee.”
“You killed him?”
“Kill or be killed, I’m afraid,” I answered. “He put me into a hallucinated state so that the vampire could bite me. After that, I kind of lost my mind and ripped your guy’s throat out.”
Elaine’s jaw fell slack as her face contorted into a look of horror. She was clearly not pleased to hear my news. Neither were the other two.
“Now,” I said before they could respond, “I’m hoping that none of you had anything to do with this, but I had to speak with you to make certain.”
She swallowed hard, obviously recalling how fragile the djinn’s community presence was on the Strip. There was no way that Elaine had any desire to go through another scandal.
“We will review all records,” she stated quickly while snapping her fingers at Ted. He ran out. “We’ll also check all video feeds and do interviews with every employee.” Glenn took off. “I can assure you that there was no coordinated event that I’m aware of, but if anything untoward has happened, I’ll find out about it.”
I nodded slowly.
“I believe you,” I said, though the jury was still out, if I was being honest. “We’re looking for the vampire, too. My guess is he came in here and got with the djinn who attacked me.”
“Do you know a name?” she asked as she took out her data pad.
“Sylvester Melbourne,” I answered.
“Sorry, I meant the name of the djinn who allegedly attacked you.”
“Ah,” I replied, ignoring the ‘allegedly’ comment. “I don’t, but if you have employee photos, I’d be happy to take a look through them.”
“Or you could just see which one of your workers is missing,” suggested Rachel in a monotone voice.
She was still in her dazed state.
“True,” I agreed.
Elaine pushed herself up and walked to the door. She paused for a moment and then turned back to look at us.
“Actually,” she said as she motioned us to join her, “let’s do both.”
Chapter 29
The djinn who had attacked me was Rip Lewis. He was only six months topside. It was unfortunate that he’d drawn the straw that landed him with Sylvester as a client. Then again, the promise of the easy way was always wrought with trials. I’d learned long ago that there really wasn’t such a thing as shortcuts, unless you were very lucky.
“We have video, Ms. Kouross,” announced Glenn as he and Ted entered the room. “We also have a scarf.”
“A scarf?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, sir,” Ted answered. “We saw on the video that he’d checked it in at the front desk, but he was in such a hurry to leave that he never picked it back up.”
Ted set the scarf down beside me. It was a dark red color that no doubt matched Sylvester’s favorite drink. I picked it up and looked at it, when the scent of it hit me like a sledgehammer.
I pointed at the video and said, “We don’t need that.”
Rachel looked at me, coming down from her mage high. “What?”
“I have Sylvester’s scent,” I whispered, holding the scarf. “Between Felicia and me, we can track the guy.”
“Ah, right.” Rachel stood up, her nose scrunched up like she’d just been around someone the day after they’d eaten a Big Ass Burrito. “Forgot about the wolf thing.”
That seemed a bit odd. So she was cool with the vampire fangs and all that, but wasn’t into me also being a werewolf? I knew she was more of a cat person, but this was a bit different.
Whatever.
“Where are you going?” asked Elaine as we started for the door.
“I can track the guy with this…” I realized what I was saying and coughed. “I mean we can…one of my officers is a werewolf. She can track Sylvester by using his scent on the scarf.”
“I see,” she said, nodding. “We’re going with you.”
“What?”
“I said—”
“I heard what you said,” I interrupted, “but it’s out of the question.”
“Why?”
“Because this a police matter, not an avenue for you to act out a vendetta.” I noticed the look of determination on her face. “I’m serious, Elaine…Ms. Kouross.” I didn’t want to act too informal around her executives. “The fact is that there’s bound to be a violent clash when we get to Sylvester, and I have little doubt that he’s turned more than just the few we’ve already run into. If you’re there, that’s just one more set of people that we’ll have to watch.”
She put her hand on her hip and started wagging a finger in my face. I hated it when women did that to me, and it happened more often than I cared to remember.
“Listen to me, Chief Dex,” she snarled, “that damnable vampire has turned one of my people. He twisted that poor boy’s mind and got him killed. For all we know, he may have turned even more of my people.” Her eyes were firm, which looked really freaky next to all the ink that was etched on her face. “If you think I’m going to sit idly by in the hopes that your crew can bring this bastard to justice, you’ve got another thing coming.”
I understood her point. Really, I did. But the fact was that I couldn’t be responsible for them. My crew was trained for this sort of thing. Her folks weren’t. They were trained to attack and kill, sure. That came with growing up in the Netherworld. But this was different.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Kouross,” I stated firmly, “but no.” She went to speak but I held up my hand. “If you get involved, I’ll have you and everyone you bring along arrested. I will also recommend deep reintegration for each of you.”
She did not look happy.
“We’ll get him,” Rachel assured her, her eyes nearly clear again. “I promise you that we’ll get him.”
With that, we headed back out of the building and got ready for the hunt.
Chapter 30
Warren and Serena had headed back to the precinct in order to work on their findings with the werebear I’d killed at Caesar’s. They’d also had some samples from the werewolf I’d destroyed here. I wasn’t sure what Serena had in mind, but she seemed hellbent on doing whatever she could to help the vampires that Sylvester likely had under his venomous spell. Warren just seemed to want to avoid fighting.
Felicia and I compared notes on the scent of Sylvester’s scarf. It was an odd sensation to track things via smell. I’d almost say it was like seeing the line of odor.
“You’re kidding me,” I said as I stared off at the building that the scent appeared to end at. I sniffed the air again. “I’ll be damned.”
“Is that a problem?” asked Felicia, staring in the same direction I was. “If anything, it’ll make our ability to track him even simpler.”
“Not a problem, no,” I replied. “Just an incredible coincidence.”
I walked back to the rest of my crew and found Rachel was giving everyone the lowdown on what had happened with the djinn. She seemed to be back to normal again.
Well, normal was a relative term, I suppose.
Prior to my getting bitten by Sylvester, her normal disposition was snarky and somewhat bossy; since the bite, she was more lovey and, well, melty. It was like she was swooning and such. I preferred Rachel to be swoonless. I wasn’t a fan of the swoon.
“It seems our vampire pal has made a home of it at Tommy Rocker’s,” I announced.
“The place you were going when you were attacked?” Rachel asked.
“One and the same, yes.” I glanced back over and sighed. “There’s no doubt going to be a null and hidde
n zone over there. Probably around back.” I had the urge to smell the air again. “Yep, definitely around back.”
We started walking as my mages prepared themselves for a showdown. Chuck and Felicia had their guns out, checking to make sure everything was set. I had a feeling I wouldn’t need Boomy, but one could never be too careful when it came to showdowns.
Just as we crossed under the far covered-parking section, Felicia abruptly stopped.
I sensed something was amiss too, but I was trying not to be too werewolfy. Rachel apparently wasn’t fond of that element in my genetic code. Not that it was my fault. It wasn’t like I’d chosen the bits of DNA that filled my personage. Did I complain that she was incapable of ordering her own dessert at a restaurant while simultaneously being fully capable of devouring whichever one I ordered? No. To be fair, that seemed to be what chicks did in general.
Regardless, I accepted her faults.
I reflexively glanced at her in fear that she may have sensed my thoughts.
She didn’t.
I felt instantly ashamed.
Here I was, a major badass with powers that were insane, but I was still terrified of my girlfriend. Sometimes I wondered if I even deserved testicles.
“Wait,” I whispered, sniffing the air again. “Shit.”
“You smell that, too?” asked Felicia.
Jasmine frowned at us. “You guys smell shit?”
“Huh?” Felicia and I responded in unison.
Then, I grunted.
“No, I was just using an expletive.” I motioned everyone to move to the other side of a red van that was parked next to us. “There are a couple of people over there.” I was pointing at the back corner of Tommy Rocker’s. “They have Sylvester’s scent on them.”
Curse of Fangs: An Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Book 6 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department) Page 10