by C. T. Phipps
Jeanine gave a tug on the back of my hair. “What was that?”
“Ow!” I said, rubbing the back of my scalp. “Sorry, vampire nightclub dancer.”
“Shapeshifter nightclub dancer,” Jeanine said. “As for why, you need to get into Lucien’s office while Emma just needs to stay out of the guard’s sight. The best way to do that is just to have her look like she’s having fun.”
“Wait, why does this look help me get into…” I trailed off. “Please don’t tell me it’s that.”
“He has a lot of relationships with the dancers,” Jeanine said, patting me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll send you in when he’s out on the floor meeting with the tourists. You’ll just have to look like you’re going to wait for him and they’ll let you in. You can then look through his stuff and leave.”
“This is a terrible plan and I am the queen of terrible plans,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Well, maybe princess, since our mom is even worse. Also, did he ever force you—”
“No,” Jeanine said, sighing. “Lucien doesn’t force anyone to sleep with him.”
“He’s your employer,” I pointed out. “He could if he wanted to.”
“You’ll change your mind once you meet him,” Jeanine said, putting her hands on her waist. “Also, I’m seeing Brad. So I wouldn’t.”
That sounded way too defensive for a question I hadn’t even asked. Also, I disagreed with that statement tremendously. No one was that hot that it was inconceivable no one would want to turn down an offer of sex from a position of power. Albeit, damn if he hadn’t been gorgeous from what I saw in Victoria’s vision. No, bad Jane. Concentrate on the fact he’s probably a crazy murderer! Wait, that doesn’t help. It just changes the nature of the problem.
Gah!
Jeanine put her arms on my shoulders. “It’ll be okay, Jane. I believe in you.”
“Because a vision told you?” I asked. “Because that’s Mom’s excuse.”
“So you’ve mentioned every few seconds during this,” Jeanine said, frowning. “No, because you’ve been a wannabe Nancy Drew since you were five. I also think this is a public place and he’s less likely to hurt you here.”
“That’s incredibly comforting,” I said, sarcastically.
“Thanks,” Jeanine said, smirking. “But I want to know if Victoria was murdered by my boss too.”
“And you’re willing to risk your sister to do it?” Emma looked less than pleased with my sister, which surprised me.
I looked around the room to make sure no other dancers were present as a few had come in to get bottles of water or touch up their makeup while my sister helped with our disguises. No one questioned our presence and I was glad of that.
Jeanine didn’t regret it. “Brad believes in Lucien. I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. Besides, she’d sneak in anyway.”
Emma didn’t respond to that.
“What is with your boyfriend’s Omerta anyway?” I asked. “That’s mafia speak for code of silence, by the way.”
My sister looked at my ears and frowned. “You should really get these pierced. You’re eighteen, for god sakes.”
“No one touches the ears,” I said, covering them with both hands. “You didn’t answer.”
“The hell if I know,” Jeanine said, sighing before removing my hands and putting on two skull-shaped clip-ons. Ear-piercings were problematic for shapeshifters unless you used silver needles and I’d never gotten around to it. “I think it’s some kind of weird bro-code thing. Lucien isn’t just a crime boss and club-owner. He’s also a magician. I think Brad is so afraid of his grandfather, he thinks he needs someone to protect him. It’s disappointing as I thought I was falling in love with an Alpha wolf but I ended up with a Beta.”
“That’s actually not how wolves work at all,” Emma corrected her. “The 1947 test by Rudolf Schenkel misconstrued how wolves work. We’re actually very social animals based on family lines. Humans are the part of us that builds hierarchies.”
“Well excuse me, Penelope Purebreed,” Jeanine said, staring at her then back at my reflection. “Okay, I’ve done as much as I can to make you look like someone Lucien would actually want to sleep with.”
“I look like myself in a corset and hot pants plus all the color drained from my wardrobe. Truly you are a goddess of makeovers.”
“You’re also wearing makeup!” Jeanine said, waving her hairbrush. “Hell is truly freezing over.”
“I wear makeup. Some, at least,” I said, frowning. “Anyway, I’m not actually going to need to attract him, so it’s cool.”
“She’s very attractive!” Emma said, frowning.
“Yeah,” Jeanine said. “In a Natalie Portman in The Professional sort of way.”
“She was fourteen in that movie,” I muttered.
“I know,” Jeanine said, smiling. “I’m going to watch out for you, no matter what. Just shout if you need help. I’ll hear it and come running.”
“You are really not reassuring me,” I said, sighing, but still set on this plan.
“We’re deer, we’ll be fine.”
“Said Bambi’s mother,” I said. “Noteworthy because this is the only time in my life I’ve ever used that reference.”
“Try since last week,” Emma said, shaking a fist. “I’ll tear this place down if Lucien or his goons tries anything. I’ll heal anything short of a silver bullet.”
I exchanged a glance with Jeanine. In all likelihood, Lucien’s goons probably were packing silver bullets.
Or at least plated ones.
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Well, I’m going to go break into a drug lord’s office and go see if there’s a murder weapon there. If there is, we’ll call down the cavalry and call it a day.”
“Thank you for this,” Emma said, looking at me. “Truly.”
Wow, I was stupid for agreeing to this. I couldn’t back out now, though. Still, I needed some insurance. “Take a picture of me here and send it to the FBI guy. If I go missing, he’ll know. Also, I can scare them off.”
Emma and Jeanine shared a glance before doing so. I had an insurance policy now.
Sort of.
Heading out the door into the Lyons’ Den, I was immediately overwhelmed by the pulse pounding tempos, sights, sounds, and smells all around me. The dressing room hadn’t drowned out all of the noise, but it had certainly muted it. The interior was dark but full of people wearing rave glow-stick jewelry and neon-signs mixed with holograms.
The central room was a massive glass dance floor with artificial fog filled with lights going through it in a scintillating show of colors. The air was cool with huge fans pouring air from the balconies above. A stage was next to the room I’d emerged from and women dressed like my sister were dancing with a number of eye-catching men without shirts in front of what looked like a movie screen showing the 1931 black-and-white Dracula movie.
There was a giant bar to the side and rooms to the side that had people sitting down and getting completely plastered. The music was a techno-beat remix of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” that included lines from various movies.
“Wow, this is way too much for a town with only partial Wi-Fi coverage,” I said, taking it all in.
A guy dressed like Edward from Twilight with less clothes handed me a bright, glowing red drink that I took a drink of and was relieved to find was just a rum-soaked strawberry daiquiri. He then winked at me, making me uncomfortable.
A further examination told me this place was a bit more dangerous than the goth Land of Oz it looked like. I noticed all of the exits had large suit-wearing men and women who looked more like the Secret Service than bouncers. They were also armed, I could tell by the bulges in their suits and there was something about their posture that also told me they weren’t human. Not shapeshifters or vampires, though, that confused me about what they could be.
“Keep an eye for security cameras,” Jeanine said, coming up behind me. She then pulled out a card from her shorts. “You probably won�
��t be able to avoid getting caught on camera in Lucien’s room, but I hate this job anyway.”
“Right,” I said, taking it. “Are you sure?”
“Nope,” Jeanine said. “But I don’t like what it’s doing to Brad either.”
Emma came out as well and looked at the daiquiri. “Uh, should you be accepting strange drinks?”
I took another sip then paused, contemplating Emma’s words. Looking at Jeanine, I asked, “Should I?”
“Security has orders to beat anyone who drugs drinks,” Jeanine said. “They caught a guy last month and I don’t think he made it back home.”
My eyes widened. “I am torn between relief and knowing that makes this mission even more dangerous.”
I handed the drink to Emma. “Where do I go?”
“There’s a private elevator hidden behind that grandfather clock covered in the fake spider webs,” Jeanine pointed at the prop not too far away from the bar. “Just swipe it and it’ll take you up past the VIP lounge to the office level.”
“What’s in the VIP lounge?” I asked, more curious than anything else.
“Drugs, sex, and Lucien,” Jeanine said. “Emma will go up there and text you if he leaves.”
“I will?” Emma asked. “Uh, that doesn’t really sound like my scene.”
“I’ll escort you up, Emma,” Jeanine said. “Just pretend you’re going to be on America’s Superhumans.”
“Oh okay,” Emma said, taking a deep breath. “This is a lot different from buying drugs from your brother.”
“Wait, what?” Jeanine asked.
“Bye now!” I said, immediately abandoning my friend to explain that. I headed to the grandfather clock and noticed it was an antique. It was weird with thirteen numbers and had an aura about it that made me think the object was an artifact of some kind. Magic wasn’t exactly common in the world, even post-Reveal.
Universities couldn’t teach the subject, as the theory was difficult for a lot of people who were otherwise able to explain quantum physics. Not because you needed to be a genius to work magic but because magic just worked for some people and not for others with seemingly no rhyme or reason. What was prayer for one Wiccan was sorcery for another, and a lot of the deep masters had very particular views of the universe that they didn’t want to have subjected to the scientific method.
Money talked, though. Plenty of mid-grade and hedge mages were willing to sell the cosmic power of the universe for the almighty dollar. They were only a drop in the bucket of the millions of charlatans who now had concrete proof to back up their cold-readings or scented candles, but they had created a cottage industry of minor mystical items. I had no idea what this thing could do but it occurred to me Lucien might be one of those guys vending sorcery—and not just to Victoria.
“Oh well,” I said, looking around the grandfather clock. “Open sesame. Abracadabra. Show me the elevator.”
Then I noticed a keycard slot behind the grandfather clock.
I blinked. “Okay, I’m an idiot.”
I slid it in the slot and the grandfather clock moved three feet forward and an elevator opened up inside. Slipping into the elevator, the doors promptly closed and I found myself in a room with no buttons. The elevator started moving before I could get used to my surroundings.
I imagined poor Emma and Jeanine in the V.I.P lounge as I passed the second floor, trying to take events as seriously as I should. I couldn’t help but see Emma surrounded by celebrities and the rich guests from New Detroit hanging around her while she completely phased out. As much as Emma looked like the party-girl, the truth was she was probably the nicer of us too and I’d dragged her to the few parties we’d attended. I’d even tried to set her up at one point with Jeremy before I realized that was a curse on both of them.
Honestly, I did have faith in Jeanine’s plan and I hoped I could repay her if we found out her boss was involved in Victoria’s murder. I should have been scared, but something told me I wasn’t in danger—yet. Honestly, I was kind of exhilarated by the prospect of breaking into a drug dealer’s office to get evidence against him. It was probably all sorts of illegal, but I wasn’t a cop either so any problems that happened would be something I was sure I could deal with.
Besides, I was solving a murder and that justified anything, right? At least that’s what eighteen years of American television had taught me.
“I am so boned,” I muttered, before jumping at the elevator making a buzzing noise before opening its doors.
I stepped out onto the third floor that consisted of railing around a square hallway with a dozen or so wooden doors. I could see the party going on down below, but the third floor still looked like the bank it had been converted from. There was a single pair of double doors on the opposite side of the balcony I was on with an Indian woman with a ponytail, hoodie, and sweatpants standing guard in front of it. She didn’t look at all like the other guards, beautiful but not sexualized, and yet I could tell there was a power to her that scared me even a hundred feet away.
Walking down the hallway, I tried to look nonchalant and whistled my way to the doors. “Uh, hi, I was given a keycard by my sister—”
Crap, that was too much information.
“I’m here for Lucien,” I said, doing my best to give her the doe eyes. Which, as far as I was concerned, qualified as a superpower.
The woman was not impressed. “How old are you, girl?”
“Twenty-one,” I said, lying my ass off.
The woman rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. I don’t know where you got that keycard but you’re going to give it back to me and get back down to the first floor. The Boss doesn’t do children.”
Okay, wow, I never thought I’d be insulted by not looking sufficiently skanky. “I’m really supposed to be here. Ask your boss.”
“All right, I will,” the woman said, pulling out her cellphone.
Dammit!
What happened next is something I’m not entirely certain about but it amounted to me summoning up my weredeer power and punching her in the gut. I was horrified halfway through but seeing her barrel over to her knees, I brought down another fist down on her head before knocking her out. I checked to make sure I didn’t accidentally kill her.
“Oh Jesus, Danu, and Herne, I’m a criminal now,” I said, close to hyperventilating. Checking the door and finding it unlocked, I opened it and saw Lucien’s office beyond. It was the same room from my vision.
Now I had to find something incriminating.
Chapter Ten
I dragged in the body of the security guard and closed the door behind me, hoping nobody saw what I was doing. Of course, my sister had warned me about security cameras and I immediately surveyed my surroundings for some sign of them.
The interior of Lucien Lyon’s office was a lot messier and more working class than the polished establishment outside. The central desk was metal and probably a decade old, the couch on the right looked like it’d seen better days, and the place had more pictures of girls than I suspect most female employees would be comfortable with.
The desk was covered with massive amounts of papers as well as a few framed pictures with their backs to me. No computer was on top of it, but a laptop case was sitting to the side. Some Inked and Revolver magazines were scattered around too, indicating the crime boss had a serious thing for tattooed metal chicks. Oh, and there was a big sliding-door closet that composed most of the left wall.
I spotted the security camera over the couch, almost invisible against the black ceiling. It hadn’t turned to me yet so I ran up to it and tried to keep it from moving before accidentally breaking it with my weredeer strength. The broken stand dropped the camera down and it hung there from the cord leading back into the wall.
Oops.
“Oh yeah,” I said, muttering, “this day just keeps getting better and better.”
In for a penny, in for a pound, as the old saying went. Closing my eyes, I hoped no one was watching those cameras and I started
looking around the office. If I was going to find something that pointed to Lucien as Victoria’s killer, then I needed to work quickly. I didn’t want to end up the second Doe family member arrested today. Though it was a better alternative to being killed for breaking into a crime boss’s office and riffling through his things.
“Christ, what a slob,” I muttered, trying to figure out where to begin looking in this mess. “Maybe he’s a wereboar.”
I reached over and put my hands on Lucien’s desk, closing my eyes to feel what I might from it. Seconds later, a rush of images passed through me and I immediately regretted doing so. Lucien had a LOT of sex on that desk. I now was worried how much else in this office was a gateway to psychic porn.
Shaking my head, I headed around the desk and started going through the papers on top. It was mostly bills for alcohol, party supplies, and the usual stuff. My eyes zeroed into the fact that a lot of it was from vampire-owned companies. There was a couple of letters from the Apophis casino in New Detroit as well as someone named “Thoth” who seemed to be financing some real estate deals here. There was even a reference to something called ‘were-tourism’ that I assumed was the plan to make people show up at our crappy town to gawk at the shifters.
Interesting and it helped explain how Lucien had made his first million before the age of twenty-four, but it was irrelevant to the case. That was when my attention turned to the pictures on his desk. They were pictures of Lucien with what I presumed to be his family. They were all platinum-blond with gray eyes except for a woman who I presumed to be his mother. She was Japanese. I saw her features in Lucien now that I had her to compare him to. There was one other picture on his desk that caused me to do a double take.
Agent Timmons.
He and Lucien were about sixteen years old, both of them wearing goth attire as they were sitting in some sort of club that was similar to but different from the Lyons’ Den. Agent Timmons wore a sour, brooding expression while Lucien was smiling and putting bunny ears up behind him.
I picked up the photo and stared at it. “Well, that’s unexpected.”