Magic After Dark: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Margo Bond Collins

  If only they had any idea exactly how preternatural it was.

  At the Cibola, however, he was running up against two problems. First, the casino was much smaller than the ones he usually dealt with. With only three floors, one section of game tables, one area for card games, and a single high-rollers’ room, the Cibola simply didn’t have that much room for mistakes.

  Pausing, he fished a $100 bill out of the wallet he used on jobs, stocked with money from petty cash, and fed the money into the nearest slot machine. He pushed buttons almost at random, using the vantage point to let the patterns of the crowd’s movement wash over him. If he actually won anything, he’d drop it back into the general fund. If he lost it, as was more likely, it was still money well spent.

  As he opened his shifter senses to everything around him, he carefully kept his eyes trained on the screen before him. It could’ve been problematic if one of the human clients or employees had actually seen his pupils at that moment—when he scanned a job site like this, his eyes almost always shifted, even if the rest of him didn’t.

  Not that all the employees were human.

  Hell, not even all the casino patrons are human.

  Even more than its size, the Cibola had the security advantage of being owned and operated by shapeshifters. Jeff Watson, the owner, was a red wolf in his other form and insisted on keeping a security team made up entirely of other shifters.

  And as far as Tomás had been able to tell, at least half the dealers on the floor during any given eight-hour work period were also shapeshifters.

  A casino run by weres was going to have a lower attrition rate than one operated by humans, and Jeff had damn well known it when he’d hired Tomás.

  The were-jaguar hit the button for a final spin on the machine and cashed out. He kept the printed ticket noting his winnings. He’d either use it later or trade it in for cash when he turned in his chips.

  Where was Jeff, anyway?

  Tomás had almost decided to let the werewolf owner know he was there. This was going to be such an easy job that Tomás wouldn’t even have to call in the rest of his team. He could simply run his usual evaluation, make a few suggestions, and head out early—maybe even get back to Houston for a week or so before heading out to Vegas for his next big job.

  He’d have the front desk give Jeff a call.

  As he stepped out of the casino and into the larger hotel, the little bird shifter guard from the day before flitted past him, still in her human form.

  Tomás had shut down the majority of his animal senses, but something was so wrong with her that he could practically taste it.

  She’s worried.

  No. Panicked.

  Without making a conscious decision to do so, he found himself turning to follow her instead of taking the escalator down to the lobby.

  With any luck, this too-easy job was about to get interesting.

  Jeff, her boss, the owner of the casino—someone she had grown to trust—had disappeared, and for a solid minute after the on-call supervisor had given her the news, Bron’s only coherent thought had been, “Thank the gods it didn’t happen while I was working.”

  Selfish, yes, but she knew if she got fired from this job, it would end any chance she might ever have at something like her dream career. Or even this sad knock-off of it.

  By the time she started thinking clearly again, she was already headed down to Jeff’s office to check for anything the security team who’d searched initially might have missed. Other shifters had great senses of smell, sure—but no one could beat a raven’s vision.

  She blamed the anxiety churning through her stomach for her failure to realize immediately that she was being followed toward the employee elevator by a casino patron.

  “I’m sorry, you can’t be…” The words died on her tongue as she spun around to find the slow-moving shifter from the day before.

  Gone, though, were his lazy smile and self-satisfied stare. Instead, he pinned her with a penetrating gaze and asked in clipped, serious tones, “What’s happened?”

  “Sir, this elevator is—”

  “Yes, restricted. I know.” He waved off her words impatiently, jerking his chin toward the executive elevator. “That’s the one Jeff Watson uses, right? Does it have to do with him?”

  Who was this guy?

  He had a slight accent—something that made his voice sound dark and musical. Like melting chocolate.

  With an effort, she dragged her attention back to the actual conversation, drawing on every ounce of training she’d ever received in dealing with irate gamblers. “Sir, I’m afraid this is a restricted area. If you don’t leave, I’ll have to have you removed.”

  The man’s jaw clenched, but he took a step back and held up both hands. “No problem. Please tell Jeff that Tomás Nahual has arrived.”

  His name pinged something in the back of her mind.

  Not a high roller. Some kind of business contact of Mr. Watson’s, maybe?

  No time to worry about that now. She’d see if she could figure it out later.

  Maybe while I’m snooping around the boss’s office.

  With a curt nod, she pushed the elevator call button and gestured pointedly back the way he’d followed her. “I will let Mr. Watson know.”

  “Thanks.” He gave a little two-fingered salute and headed out of the employees-only area.

  As the elevator door closed, he turned back around and stared at her with those intense eyes.

  The self-satisfied smile was back, though.

  Chapter 3

  Bron shook her head as she moved toward Jeff’s desk. That had been a weird interaction—which made it about par for the course today.

  “Got to be something in here,” she muttered to herself. Taking a seat in Jeff’s big, leather office chair, she leaned back and surveyed his desk.

  His laptop sat on his desk, powered down and closed. Though she doubted she’d be able to log in, she opened it with one and hand and clicked the power button.

  While she waited for it to finish booting up, she pulled a brown, leather-bound day planner across the mahogany desk toward her.

  Flipping the book open, she scanned the next few days, her gaze pausing on a notation about an appointment for later today, scrawled in Jeff’s distinctive handwriting.

  Tomás Nahual—Big Cat Security.

  The guy out in the hall.

  God. He was a cat shifter of some kind? No wonder he looked so smug.

  But why was Jeff bringing in outside security? What kind of work was Nahual supposed to be doing for Bron’s boss?

  I guess I’ll have to question him.

  For some reason, the thought of it sent a shiver down her back.

  A perfectly natural raven reaction to a cat, she told herself. In an attempt to divert her attention from the subject of the sexy cat shifter, Bron continued searching the office.

  Where else might Jeff put important information?

  She tilted her head to one side, darting her eyes around the room, working to use her avian senses.

  If it had been her own office, Bron would have filled it with interesting objects, bright, cheerful things that could engage her attention. But this was a wolf’s office, and wolves were fixated on how things smelled.

  Bron’s sense of smell might not be as acute as Jeff’s, but her eyesight was infinitely better, even in her human form. Within seconds, she had spotted an odd inconsistency in the office’s layout. One of the walls didn’t quite match up correctly with her memory of the outer hallway parameters.

  She’d never noticed it before—then again, she’d rarely been in Jeff’s office for more than a few minutes at a time, certainly never long enough to do a thorough survey of the room’s dimensions.

  She didn’t even know if she would’ve noticed it if she hadn’t been looking for something strange.

  But on the wall to her right stood a tall bookcase. Although it had a few volumes on it, mostly business texts and a couple of thrillers, Jeff
didn’t strike Bron as being much of a reader—and indeed, around the books Bron’s sharp eyesight took in faint lines of dust the cleaning service had missed.

  Standing up, she moved to the case. Tilting her head first one direction, and then another, she examined the piece of furniture more carefully. She ran her fingers around the inside of the case, under the shelves, and along the backing of each individual shelf.

  There.

  The button was down low, where Jeff would be able to reach it in either his human or his lupine form. If the shelf had been in an office of Bron’s, she would’ve put it up higher, where she could reach it with her hands or in flight. But Jeff’s entrance had to be simple, something he could activate with Apollo or nose.

  Really, that was why wolves were inferior to ravens. They might have sharp teeth, and be better predators, the ravens were infinitely better at manipulating things.

  Beaks are definitely better than paws.

  Once she had found it, it was easy for Bron to push the button that caused the bookshelf to swing outward and the metal door behind it to open inward.

  How very Gothic, an amused part of her thought. The only better thing would be if he’d had an ornate fireplace that swung around when you pulled on a candle sconce.

  A quick survey of the interior revealed a panic room, stocked with plenty of supplies. A control panel along the lower quarter of the wall to the right as she entered had a series of simple buttons marked “close,” “lock,” and “open,” again suggesting that Jeff had prepared to be able to enter and use the room even if he had shifted into his animal shape.

  Above that, at comfortable human height, was a much more sophisticated control panel, with a number of screens showing a variety of feeds from all over the hotel: the casino floors, the lobby, outside. Even without touching it, Bron was certain whoever was inside the room could change the views to see more—the setup was very much like the one in the security video control room downstairs.

  As interesting as it all was, though, Bron couldn’t see anything that might provide a hint about where Jeff Watson had disappeared to. Anyway, the panic room didn’t seem like a particularly good place to hide something, given how easy it had been to access.

  At her hip, her walkie-talkie crackled. “You finding anything up there?” Vance, the guard manning the dispatch center, asked.

  “Nothing useful,” Bron replied as she backed out of the panic room and pushed the button to close it up again. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Okay. Keep me posted. Staff meeting in thirty, one way or another.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Bron spent another ten minutes riffling through Jeff’s desk drawers, but she didn’t find much of interest. Then again, barring a note with “this is an important clue” scrawled across it in bright red ink, she wasn’t entirely certain that she would recognize what was important and what wasn’t.

  With a sigh, she leaned back in the chair and surveyed the room one last time.

  Nothing.

  She shook her head and pushed herself to her feet. She was pretty sure that not even trying to think like a wolf would help her find anything this office. If Jeff had hidden something important, something that would give any insight into where he might be now, Bron was sure it wasn’t in this room.

  That meant his private suite in the hotel.

  Yuck. Bron had been hoping to find something in his work office that would allow her to avoid entering his personal space like that. Everything in her nature and her upbringing told her that it was rude to go poking around in someone else’s nest. Even if her security training had taught her otherwise, she still found it difficult to invade other’s home.

  Still, it had to be done. Squaring her shoulders, she marched toward the door, determined to take her search up to the penthouse suite where Jeff lived.

  As she stepped out into the hallway, though, she was brought up short by the sight of the man she had spoken to earlier. He leaned against the wall across from Jeff’s office, managing to look both indolent and alert at the same time. His gold-green eyes watched her carefully, even as his lazy smile suggested amusement at the world in general and Bron in particular. “So, find anything interesting?” he asked.

  The little bird shifter’s swift, startled glance made Tomás want to pounce on her, if only to see how she’d react to an even more direct move from him. The urge was so strong that he had to tense his muscles and lean back into the wall to restrain himself from acting on it.

  In the end, though, he managed to do no more than smile and ask what she’d found.

  Barely managed.

  “Not much,” she said tersely, her darting eyes taking in every aspect of his stance. “I did find a note about you on Jeff’s calendar,” she added almost reluctantly.

  “Oh, yeah? What did it say?”

  “Nothing specific. Only that he had a meeting with you. And that you’re from Big Cat Security.” She said the name of his company almost accusingly, as if his business were a personal affront to her. Which of course it might be, given the fact that she was both a bird and a member of the casino’s regular security team.

  With half a smile, Tomás produced the business card he’d tucked away for her in the soft leather briefcase he carried. If he’d been thinking, he would have given it to her before she went into Jeff’s office. However, something about her threw him off his game. Still, he had it now, and she took it from him, plucking it out of his hands as quickly in her human form as she might have done with her beak in her bird form.

  She glanced at the information on the card. “So you own the business?” Her question was almost tense.

  Tomás inclined his head. “I do.”

  An internal battle flashed across her face. Finally, she nodded, her lips pursed as if she had come to some decision. “Come with me,” she ordered, turning sharply away from him and heading toward the employees’ elevator.

  Tomás followed, more curious than ever. “Sure,” he drawled, “but where are we going?”

  “Up to Jeff’s suite,” she said.

  Tomás waited until they were in the elevator and the bird shifter had used her card to key in the right floor before he said, “If you’re taking me up to a hotel room, shouldn’t I know your name first?”

  The tiny bird spun on him, her eyes flashing. Despite a desire to laugh, Tomás couldn’t help but admire the fire she showed. “Jeff is missing. He’s been gone for over twenty-four hours, and no one knows where he is.”

  At that, Tomás’s lazy grin fell away and he became all business. “Who was the last person to hear from him?”

  The bird—whose name, he realized, he still didn’t know—shook her head. “I just came in on this, and I’m not entirely certain he didn’t simply take off overnight.” Her voice trailed off.

  “You don’t really believe that.” Tomás’s comment wasn’t a question.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Well then. Lead on,” Tomás said, as the elevator door slid open on the penthouse floor that few visitors ever got to see.

  “By the way, my name is Bron. Short for Bronwyn,” she flung over her shoulder as she used her key card to open Jeff’s door, her back tensed as if she were waiting to see the very worst possible scene inside the room.

  That concern, which Tomás shared, only intensified when the door swung open to reveal a suite in shambles.

  The space had been completely trashed. Pillow-stuffing floated around the living room in tufts of polyester fuzz. In the bedroom, the mattress had been shoved off the frame and slit open to reveal everything inside them. Everything on the bedside table had been shoved onto the floor, with enough force to break the ceramic base of the lamp. The coffee pot had shattered, too, and glass crunched under their shoes as they moved through the suite.

  Tomás let out a long, low whistle. “Well, I guess housekeeping hasn’t been here lately,” he said in a wry tone. Focusing on a partial shift, he drew in the scents of the space, pulling air over the J
acobson’s organ on the roof of his mouth, testing the molecules for the smell of blood.

  Nothing.

  His sense of smell might not be as strong as a wolf’s, but Tomás was still able to parse out individual scents from a room full of smells.

  Bron’s eyes darted around the room as she examined it for anything that might tell her something useful.

  “What were they looking for?” The muscle along the side of Tomás’s jaw clenched and unclenched as he waited for Bron to answer.

  “I have no idea. Before this week, I would have argued that Jeff was as straight as they came—especially for a casino owner. I have never seen any indication at all that he’s crooked. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t even tell white lies.” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes for a few seconds. “None of this makes any sense at all.”

  Tomás shook his head. “Whatever happened in here, it didn’t include blood.”

  Bron nodded, heaving a relieved sigh.

  “You going to call the human police in on this? Or the Shields?” Tomás asked.

  “No.” Bron’s voice was adamant. “That’s why I brought you up. If anyone can deal with my missing boss, it ought to be Big Cat Security. Right?”

  “Well, you’d certainly think so.”

  Bron moved into the room, kicking a closet door open only long enough to grab a hanger that she then used to begin poking through the debris on the floor.

  She’s got good instincts, Tomás thought as he followed her example. “Try not to touch anything, in case we need to get fingerprints.”

  This time the look run through over her shoulder at him was irritated. “Of course I won’t.”

  For the most part, the items on the floor seem to be from Jeff’s desk, closet, and drawers—the room was littered with clothing and paper of all descriptions.

  “God. I don’t even know where to start,” Bron muttered as she shuffled through everything.

  “For now, look for anything that seems out of place, that looks like it might be some kind of anomaly,” Tomás suggested.

  “It all looks out of place.” Bron moved into the suite’s living area, where the cushions on the furniture had been slashed and ripped. “Good God. What were they looking for?”