by Jenn Stark
Dixie threw open the doors to the inner sanctum, giving me the opportunity to glare at Nikki. Even in her MMA-sanctioned skinsuit, Nikki looked exposed, and she mouthed, Sorry, before we stepped into Dixie’s office.
“Let me wake everything back up real quick,” Dixie said. “Security, you know.”
“Nice map,” I observed, mainly to give me something to focus on that wasn’t her or Brody. As I stared at Brody’s familiar pincushion of colored markers and strings tying one crime scene to another, little notes with case details stuck at various points, I wrestled with my own emotions. I didn’t care that Dixie and Brody were dating, so I shouldn’t care that he’d tapped her to help him in an official capacity. Even if she was a horoscope reader, not a Tarot reader, and about as low-level a Connected as you could get.
“It just keeps getting more involved!” Dixie enthused, her gaze also fixing on the map. “But there couldn’t be a better time for us to begin this work together.”
That broke through my rapidly building wall of snark. “Why?”
“Well, disappearances, for one,” Brody said. He moved over to the map. “It was hard to track at first, because the Connected population stays pretty off the grid to begin with. But when Dixie started to notice that a growing portion of the community was either slowing down on their engagement or dropping out of regular circulation entirely, she contacted me.”
“And as usual, you ignored me,” Dixie said, sweet as Southern tea.
Brody nodded, not apologetic. “Like I said, a fringe population. Carnies come and go, and they have for the past ten years I’ve been here.”
I grimaced. Ten years. That was how long ago it’d been since Brody and I had worked missing persons in Memphis. I’d been seventeen years old and crushing hard on “Officer Brody,” at least until my world had blown up. Now Dixie had taken my place, and she had enough stars in her eyes to fill an entire astrological chart.
Brody didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he pointed to the map, singling out black pins among the clusters of other colors. “Absolutely no pattern to the geographic data of the MPs. They’re from all over the city and the suburbs. Some were Strip regulars, some not.”
Despite myself, I was intrigued. “Ages?”
“All over the place, which surprised me too.”
Dixie piped up. “Would have made sense for them to belong to a particular demographic—successful, unsuccessful, rich, poor, old, young. But we’ve got the gamut.” She rotated the laptop toward her. “Maggie Simms, sixty-seven years old, hairstylist and palm reader. Joe Baggett, forty-five years old, card reader.”
“Hey, I know him,” Nikki said, frowning. “He reads at Circus Circus.”
Dixie nodded. “He’s been missing for a week, but before that, according to his friends, he’d stopped coming to his station every day. Not something you do in Vegas if you want to maintain your patch. It’s too competitive.”
“Any kids disappeared?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“About a half-dozen so far,” Dixie said. “It’s summer, so it took longer for them to be noticed, longer still for parents to sound the alarm, but we’ve started getting the calls. And, more importantly, so have the police.”
Brody nodded. “LVMPD reported an uptick in missing persons reports from the psychic community, as identified by their stated professions only. Figured there was probably a fair number of these people who weren’t identifying themselves as Connected by employment status, so—”
“So he asked me to help,” Dixie said. She beamed, so happy I couldn’t stay annoyed, not really. The love astrologer had a knack for identifying happy couples who were most likely to stay happy from the regular stream of newlyweds that flowed through her doors. Her weddings tended to stick, which was saying something in this city. Though she’d never thrown any serious woo that I’d seen, she was also the most traditionally connected of Connecteds I’d ever met, at least in Vegas. She knew everyone who was anyone in the community, and all of the not-so-someones as well.
Then she punctured my bubble of goodwill.
“I’ve begun charting the most likely next victims too, at least with the information I have.” She squinted at me. “Speaking of, I don’t think I’ve ever read your chart, Sara. When was your birth date?”
“Charting them?” Nikki’s barked surprise redirected Dixie’s attention. “How does that work exactly?”
Dixie blinked at her. “Why, most of the Connected have gotten their chart read by me at some point or another.” She dimpled. “It’s part of my welcome package.”
I lifted my brows. “And gives you an awful lot of data at the same time.”
“Well, of course,” she said, but I didn’t miss the flash of shrewdness in her eyes. “What good would I be as a mother hen if I didn’t know something about my chicks? But the point is, once we got the names of the poor souls who’d gone missing, calling up their charts wasn’t a difficult leap. And wouldn’t you know, all of them have the same hard aspect of Saturn squaring Pluto in the Sixth House right now. Saturn is the planet of fear, and Pluto brings that fear out. The Sixth House is the house of health, or perhaps more accurately, illness.”
Brody looked pained. “Skip to the end, Dixie.”
“It’s important!” she protested. “If you pay attention to astrology—and chances are high that this community did—if you keep tabs, you’d be worried.”
“Worried enough to disappear on purpose?” I asked, still not seeing the correlation.
“Worried enough to seek help,” Dixie said. She laid a hand over her pink tank top, her long, lacquered fingernails a perfect match for the shiny fabric. “And if they sought it from the wrong place, they’d be easy pickings for getting taken advantage of by an unscrupulous healer. It’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense—they sought help from a healer who was really a front for something more sinister, and they were abducted or something. It gives us a place to start.”
Brody rubbed a hand over his head. “Only there’re about five hundred healers in the Vegas area, at various stages of legitimacy. So it’s not a great start.” He glanced at me, but if he thought I was going to whip out my Tarot cards, he was out of luck. He’d chosen his helper already.
And as it turned out, I wasn’t as special a snowflake after all.
“Either way, we can narrow down the options quick enough,” Dixie said cheerfully. She reached next to the laptop and pulled a velvet cloth packet to the center of the table, unfolding it quickly. Within rested another map, sewn into the velvet backing—and a pendulum. Dixie picked up the fine chain, allowing its carved and pointed pendant to swing. “We’ll have a place to start shortly.”
My eyes popped, and even Nikki registered surprise as Dixie seated herself at the table, then cradled the pendulum in her hands, murmuring some sort of prayer over it. Since when had she started doing pendulum readings?
This didn’t seem the time to ask, and when Dixie asked for locations, Brody pulled out his battered notebook. I tried not to react to the sight. How many times had he produced a similar notebook when I’d been working with him? Too many. Irritation riffled through me as I concentrated on Dixie.
Irritation and…something else.
Brody rattled off an address, and Dixie breathed out, then held the pendulum over the map, presumably over the location Brody had singled out. The pendulum quivered but didn’t do much more, and she asked for the next location. Moving across the map, she pinpointed that location too, but got additional movement this time. Unfortunately, it was in counterclockwise motion, which was the universal sign of “nope.”
“At least now we’re getting somewhere,” Dixie said, and I exchanged a look with Nikki.
The same confusion lurked in her eyes. How long had Dixie been scrying this way?
The third and fourth locations were equally fallow—both of them stilling the pendulum to virtually no movement—and Brody’s voice contained the slightest edge of impatience as he called out the next
address. “Fourteen Seventeen Industrial Way.”
Dixie obligingly moved the pendulum to a location well north of the Strip, though virtually a straight shot up Las Vegas Boulevard. And this time, she hit pendulum paydirt.
“Whoa,” Nikki offered, bringing a bright smile to Dixie’s face, but otherwise, the astrologer kept herself perfectly still, the pendulum spinning in a wide circle over the map coordinates. “I think we have a winner.”
Brody was at the keyboard. “That’s a medical research clinic, one of those places where you try out different shampoos and skin products,” he said. “They’re accepting walk-ins.” He glanced up at us, and his gaze met mine for a half second before shearing away to focus on Dixie. “Your carnie group go in for much of that?”
Dixie made a face. “I wish you would use more inclusive language. We’re no different from any other population.”
Nikki interrupted. “Either way, everyone’s gotta make a living. I don’t care if their chart said things were coming up roses; if this place paid cold hard cash for dumping goo on your arm, and you were having a hard time of it, you’d try it.” She looked at Brody. “What other places you got?”
Brody went back to calling out locations, and in the end, we had four different places that pinged Dixie’s pendulum—the medical testing facility didn’t even net the biggest reaction, though it definitely was strong. “You want help?” I asked. I could be the bigger person.
But Brody shook his head. “Bad enough I have one civilian in on this, I don’t need more.”
Okey-dokey.
Dixie unwisely chose to pile on, in her butter-wouldn’t-melt Southern accent. “And we know the locations now,” she said, patting her velvet-backed map. “The finding part is all taken care of. It’s a matter of identifying faces and places now. That’s a way I can definitely help.” Her smile remained radiant, maybe a little defiant. Well, good for her, I decided. The faster they found these missing Connecteds, the better all around.
Dixie turned to Brody. “I’ll be ready in a jiff!” she said, then exited the office, presumably to go find the exact right shade of bubblegum lipstick to win over the medical testing community.
Brody turned his gaze on me, and I shot him my most practiced “I don’t give a crap” smile.
“So,” I asked. “How’s the civilian-consulting thing working out so far for you?” I restrained myself from adding “this time around.” Bigger. Person.
He shrugged. “Early days. It keeps her from calling the LVMPD directly, demanding answers, and she does know the community. If her pendulum and charts cut down on legwork, we take care of this case quicker. That’s all good to me.”
“I hadn’t seen her work the pendulum before,” Nikki drawled, saving me from broaching the subject. “You guys take in a seminar or something?”
“Seems to know what she’s doing,” he said noncommittally. “We’ll check it out, I’ll let you know.”
“Let you know what?” Dixie bounced back in, her sharp eyes scanning each of us. Fortunately, mind reading wasn’t one of her newfound skills, and I had no problem lying to her.
“The kids,” I said brusquely, and her gaze flicked to mine. “Medical testing facilities typically don’t mess with anyone under the age of eighteen, unless they have a parent in tow, and even then it’s sketchy. Tons of paperwork, a serious trail. You guys find anything like that, I’d like to know.”
Her smile was spun sugar, and I almost felt bad for wanting to rain on her parade. “Of course, Sara,” she said, reaching out to touch my sleeve. “We’ll tell you whatever we can, as soon as we can.”
It was the right answer for Brody, and he gave Dixie the kind of appreciative smile I’m sure I would’ve earned too, had I been that cheerful during the four years Brody and I had worked together. Most of the time, however, if I recalled correctly, I’d vacillated between being obstinate, moony-eyed, or surly. The joys of working with a teenager, I supposed.
But as Dixie pulled her hand away, she grazed the top of my wrist, a touch that lasted only a second, but was enough to jolt through me so sharply, I barely avoided yanking my arm back in alarm.
She didn’t notice as she turned to Brody.
“We’ll take my car?” she asked, emanating enough hope that I was able to muster a smile. Nikki’s snort brought Brody’s head up to focus on Dixie again.
“What? No,” he said. “We go in my sedan. Your pink convertible isn’t exactly nondescript.”
She pouted. “But your car is so—”
“Filthy?” Nikki offered.
“Beat-up?” I chimed in.
“Boring,” Dixie finished, and Brody threw up his hands.
“It’s a car. Who gives a—let’s go,” he said, and stalked out the door.
We followed. Dixie’s laughter floated in the air like tinkling bells as she chattered with Nikki all the way to the entry of the chapel, calling out to some hidden assistant that she’d “be back before the evening crowd.” Brody and Dixie departed, leaving Nikki and me communing with the trail of wedding-clad geese.
“Sorry, dollface,” she began, but I held up a hand.
“How well do you know Dixie?” I asked. “How well and how long?”
Nikki frowned, considering the question. “Gotta be about five or six years now. Why?”
I gestured her toward the jeep, and we moved that way. “When everyone’s psychic abilities got a boost a few months ago, her powers got amped too, right? Right along with Brody’s cop instincts or whatever you want to call it.”
“Yep. And we’re all still amped, thank you very much. Check’s in the mail for that one, promise.”
“But she didn’t use the pendulum then, right?”
“Nope.” Nikki slung into the jeep, frowning as she squinted at the windshield. “Definitely not.” She got out again and pulled something free of the wiper blades. It was a blank business card. She showed it to me as she slid back into the vehicle, but I shrugged, and she tapped the steering wheel with it.
“She was all still astrology and romance intuition. The pendulum is new. The consulting gig with the police is—new. I only found out about it right after you headed out to Paris, and I didn’t know she was scrying as well. Why?”
I blew out a breath. I hadn’t told Nikki everything about me that had changed. I wasn’t exactly sure how to do it. So I took the bold road and skirted the issue.
“With this last round of healing, Armaeus increased certain sensing abilities within me.”
“Now we’re talking!” Nikki chortled, but sobered as she focused on my face. “So, spill it, then. You’re telling me you just sensed something strange about Dixie? Because you looked like you’d eaten a bad banana when she touched you. Was that when you noticed? I just assumed you were grumpy.”
“I am grumpy,” I said, expelling a long breath. “Dixie was high back there in her office, Nikki. She’s using technoceuticals.”
Chapter Fifteen
“You have got to be—no. No, I don’t believe it,” Nikki said.
Suddenly, she squawked and dropped the business card on her lap, then flicked it away. It ricocheted off the console to land on the gearshift well. “Son of a bitch! That thing just set itself on fire.”
I leaned over and poked at the card—it was smoking, but no markings were visible. I lifted it carefully by the edge, and flipped it over.
“Nikki. Fight training. Kreios.” I read, then looked up into her poleaxed face. “You’ve got a date to fight with the Devil?”
Her eyes flared wide. “I guess I…do?”
“Ouch!” I yelped as the card flared in my fingers. I also dropped it, and it landed again backside up, only this time the back wasn’t blank, but edged with the same burnt lettering as the front. One word. “Now.”
“He’s kind of pushy, don’t you think?” I muttered as Nikki roared the Jeep to life and threw it into gear.
“I can’t admit so much to caring right now,” she said. “Where can I drop you?”
“Take me to the Flamingo. I’ll walk the rest of the way.” It was a testament to Nikki’s focus that she didn’t ask where I was walking or put up a fight to take me there. After what she’d said about Armaeus’s recent spate of bonhomie, though, he definitely was my next stop. An annoyed Armaeus made sense to me; a pissed-off Armaeus was useful. A happy Armaeus? Pretty much a basket of bats.
We made it from Dixie’s to the Strip in record time. Nikki skimmed through three lights as if her hair was on fire.
“Did you ask him to train you?” I asked, laughing as she banked hard into the Flamingo’s driveway. It appeared she would be springing for valet parking instead of wasting another minute.
“Not in so many words.” Nikki shook her head. “But he knows I’m working with Master Kunh. Remember, I saw him at Flamingo? I was there on a date. He mentioned how hot I looked, we got to talking about my exercise regimen, you know…” She grinned. “The usual.”
I stared at her. “You were on a date?”
“Girl’s gotta eat, right?” she demanded. “And you were gone. It’s not like I want to pay for food myself. Anyway, Kreios was there, saw me, and I might maybe have mentioned my training with Kunh. He got a funny look in his eye, but he’s the Devil. I didn’t think anything of it.”
“And now you’re going to, ah, train with him.”
Nikki waggled her brows. “I plan on being an excellent student. You call me when you’re done with Armaeus?”
“Not likely.” I laughed, not surprised she’d intuited my destination. I watched as she strode through the Flamingo’s front doors. In her head-to-toe Lycra, platinum hair, and starlet boots, she drew stares from everyone within a thirty-foot radius. Yes, this was Vegas, but there were some things that still stood out. Nikki Dawes was one of them.
I turned up the sidewalk and walked the few blocks to the Luxor, mind churning. If Dixie was using serious technoceuticals, the first question was—why? The easy answer was to bind herself more tightly to Brody, but was there anything more to it than that?