Sin City Goddess

by Annino, Barbra

  Archer was wearing his cop face. I had first noticed it when he was talking to Jeremy in the tunnel. He wore it well, and Sam must have thought so too, judging from the nervous way he kept licking his lips.

  I pulled up a chair to join them.

  Sam smiled weakly at me. “Hi.”

  “Hello.”

  Archer was examining the liquid. “And you don’t know what’s in it?”

  “No. It’s some huge secret. The guy I get it from, Greg, he never told me.”

  “Does Greg have a last name?” Archer grabbed a pen.

  “I don’t know his last name or where he lives, but I can give you his number.”

  Archer handed Sam the pen, and he scribbled on the pad of paper.

  Archer went over to the laptop and turned on the large screen. He pulled up the photographs of the missing women, including Alecto.

  Sam flinched.

  “You remember these women we talked about, Sam? Remember what I asked you?”

  “You asked me if I had served them.”

  “And what did you say?” Archer’s voice was sharp.

  “I said I couldn’t remember.” Sam licked his lips.

  I enjoyed watching him squirm.

  “You want to revise that statement?”

  “N-no, sir. I never saw them.”

  “What about her?” Archer pointed to Alecto.

  Sam looked at the photograph of Alex standing by the three-Graces statue.

  Sam knew he couldn’t deny it. Alex had danced at the Shadow Bar.

  “I think she danced once or twice.”

  Archer nodded. “Better.” He pointed to the photograph of Cicely Barnes. “What about her?”

  “No. Never saw her before.”

  Archer slammed his palm into the table. Even I jumped. I wondered if that was an act for Sam’s benefit, sexual frustration, or a combination of the two.

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “It’s the truth. Look, the juice is strong stuff, man. Some people can’t handle it. Maybe she overdosed or something.”

  Archer put both hands on the desk and looked down. He had a new expression on his face when he stood back up. I wasn’t familiar with it. He looked at me. “You know, I never thought of that. Maybe they all overdosed. Maybe they just ran away.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Sam said, warming up to the idea.

  Archer positioned his body in front of Sam’s. He crouched down. “Yeah, that could explain everything.” In a fit of rage that I didn’t see coming, Archer grabbed Sam by the shirt and lifted him out of the chair with one hand. “Except she was murdered last night!” He threw Sam back into the chair.

  Sam’s cheeks lost all color.

  “That’s right, you son of a bitch. Her body was found in a Dumpster; she was cut up into little tiny pieces.”

  That couldn’t be true. Archer would have mentioned it to me if the police had found her body, but the tactic worked.

  Sam shook his head. “I didn’t sign up for this, man. No one was supposed to get hurt.”

  I leaned forward at this. “What do you mean, no one was supposed to get hurt?”

  I glanced at Archer. He pulled a chair over. “You better talk to me, Sam. Because right now you’re the only suspect I’ve got. You know what they do to pretty boys like you in prison?”

  “Okay, okay, there is no Greg. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  Sam started to sweat. Archer grabbed the notepad and the pen.

  “A few months ago, when I first started, a guy came into the bar. Said he was looking for some girls. He had a side business, he said.”

  Archer asked, “What kind of business?”

  “Escort service. He said he had a high-end client that paid very well for long-term dates. His job was to find the girls, and if they were interested, he would set up a meeting to introduce them to his client. Said it was a sweet deal for everyone. The client was some super-rich dude. He’d pay for their schooling, clothes, even let them live in his mansion if they wanted.” Sam looked at me. “Who wouldn’t want that, right?”

  I resisted the urge to kick him in the head.

  “Uh, anyway.” Sam turned back to Archer. “He offered me a finder’s fee. A thousand bucks for each girl. Cash. He even paid cash for the drinks. The guy had a real specific type. Black hair, tall, thin. I called him whenever a girl like that would come into the bar. That’s when he gave me the loose juice. Said it loosened them up to the idea.”

  “But you served it to other guests. Even Jessica,” I said.

  Sam looked at me. “Jessica has an iron liver. Nothing affects that girl.” Then he turned to Archer. “The other guests—that was never my idea. When Clyde saw the jar behind the bar, I told him it was a cocktail for a specific customer. It was his idea to spread it around to people who asked for something special. We set a limit, though. One per guest per night.”

  “And the guy? How much would you give him?” Archer asked.

  “As much as he wanted.”

  Archer sat back and shook his head.

  Sam said, “I didn’t think it would hurt anyone, I swear.”

  “So when I came to you, told you the girls went missing, why did you lie to me?”

  Sam shrugged. “People come to Vegas to get lost all the time. I thought the rich dude was like a Hugh Hefner or something. Thought he was building a Playboy mansion. I thought… I thought the girls wanted to disappear.”

  “I should kill you just for being stupid,” Archer said.

  Sam put his head down, then lifted it up. “You don’t think they’re all dead, do you?”

  “For your sake, you better hope not.”

  Sam swallowed hard.

  “What’s this man’s real name?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, I swear to God. All I have is his number. He wouldn’t tell me his name.”

  “I take it that’s not the number you just wrote down.”

  Sam shook his head. “That’s my ex-girlfriend’s number.”

  “Charming,” I said.

  “What does he look like?” asked Archer.

  “My height. Average build. Shaves his head bald but wears a hat a lot. Light skin.”

  Archer frowned. “Any distinguishing features? Tattoos? Birthmarks?”

  Sam thought a moment. “The only thing I noticed was his eyebrow. He has one eyebrow—the left, I think—that’s slashed through with a scar. Almost like he has three of them.”

  Archer jotted something down. “Call him.”

  Sam looked from me to the lawman. “Now?”

  “Right now,” said Archer.

  Sam pulled out a portable phone. He stopped. “There’s one more thing.”

  “What?” asked Archer.

  Sam wiped a trail of sweat from his brow. “He came in last night.” He looked at me. “He asked about you. You’re his type.”

  “What did you tell him?” I asked.

  “Just your name. I didn’t say you were a cop or anything.”

  A thought occurred to me. “Sam, did you slip me that loose juice when you served me martinis?”

  “No way. You acted like you were on it, though.”

  I looked at Archer. Clyde? Had he put it in my cocktail? Or was it just vodka that affected me so poorly?

  Archer said, “Call him. Tell him you got a girl for his client. Tell him to come to the bar tonight.”

  Sam picked up the phone.

  Chapter 33

  After Sam left, Archer sat back in his chair, deep in thought.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked him.

  “I’m thinking we’re finally getting somewhere. I’m thinking that whoever took the girls might have murdered me.”

  I met his gaze.

  “Think about it,” he said. “If he was there at the Shadow Bar, maybe he heard something, maybe my questions spooked him.”

  I considered that. “Then that means you can’t be there tonight. I have to do it alone.”

  Arc
her shook his head. “No—no way.”

  “Archer, I can handle a mere mortal,” I said. “Besides, I’ve got backup.” I reached for Indigo, and she woke up. She batted her long lashes at Archer and cooed.

  Archer leaped from his chair. “What the?” He looked at me. “I knew it looked different, but I didn’t know it was… alive.”

  I waved my finger at him. “Never underestimate a goddess.”

  Archer stared at Indigo. She yawned and stretched her wings.

  “Speaking of goddesses, did you make contact before the portal was toasted? Did you tell anyone about the gate?”

  “Yes and no.” I told him about that wine-soaked moron, Dionysus. “I’ll try again with the Graces statue.”

  Cerberus scratched at the door then. I let him in. He ran up to take a nap on Archer’s bed.

  Archer said, “I was able to manipulate a video of that archeological expedition.” He walked over to the large screen and touched a few images. Up popped a video of the ancient ruins I had seen earlier at the site of Hades’s gate.

  “Please turn off the sound if you are able,” I said.

  Archer hit another button, and the video played. Then he manipulated his fingers and the screen zoomed in on the entrance of the gate I had seen earlier on the newscast.

  He said, “Do you see that? Right there. What is that?” He paused the video and pointed to something in the lower-right-hand corner. Something just outside the entrance.

  Something with yellow eyes.

  “Son of a snake charmer,” I whispered. “It’s Lamia.”

  So that’s what the vision meant. When I consecrated the sword, those were the yellow eyes I had seen.

  So then what was the inky blackness? The tar-like blob?

  “Lamia?”

  I grabbed a Gatorade—purple this time—and started pacing, thinking, and playing with the cap from my drink. This was bad. This was horrible, in fact. How in Hades’s name could they possibly have let her escape?

  Archer was waiting for an explanation.

  I took a deep breath. “Lamia is one of the worst monsters I, or anyone, has ever known. But she didn’t start out that way, as I’ve said before. It is a process to become a demon. She was once a regal queen, quite beautiful, an enchantress who caught the eye of Zeus. They had a brief affair, and when Hera found out, she was furious. She said it was the last time he would make a fool of her. Said either he could break things off with Lamia or she would leave him and take half the kingdom for herself.” I took a swig of the drink. “Zeus begged Hera’s forgiveness. Despite his roving eye, he really does love her. He vowed fidelity forever from that moment forward. When he told Lamia that it was over, she cried, she wailed, she begged him to choose her over Hera, all to no avail. Then one night, steeped in a depression so deep she couldn’t crawl her way out of it, she drowned her five children. That heinous act blackened her soul, devoured the beautiful woman she was, and transformed the once-regal queen into a twisted creature with the torso of a serpent and the upper body of a woman. The monster took over, and she went on a rampage, feeding on the blood of the young, until I banished her to the bowels of the Underworld.”

  Archer had the look of a man who had just folded pocket aces. “And now she’s here, in this world.”

  I glanced at the screen. “It appears so.”

  “Can she—it, whatever—be killed?”

  “Now that she’s left her only sanction, yes. Let’s just hope she doesn’t feed in the meantime. She isn’t large in stature, but her tongue has the power to lift a bull and her tail can flatten a stone wall with one whack.”

  “You said before that you weren’t sure if something was trying to get out through the gate or if someone wanted to banish something into the Underworld through the gate. What do you think now?”

  I looked at the image of Lamia. All I could see were those piss-colored eyes, but I knew there was a ragged mop of hair above them and fangs below them. I knew that her thick torso had slid out through the poisonous vapors unharmed, as only cockroaches and snakes could do. I stared at the screen, remembering the day I had imprisoned her. The day I had warned the gods that if she ever got out, she would kill relentlessly, ruthlessly, and without remorse. The Fates had given me carte blanche to track her to the ends of the earth if need be. “Do not hesitate to destroy her,” Atropos had said.

  Lamia had been bound, strictly. She had no tasks in Tartarus, as others had. She was sentenced only to listen to the cries of her drowning children over and over again. She was given no leverage. No mercy.

  Which meant she was hungry.

  And it meant one other thing. “Someone summoned her here. Someone who knows who she is. And someone aided her escape.”

  Archer said, “Sounds like a good time to call in the cavalry.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Archer reached for the notepad. He tapped the pen. “You said she had five children?”

  “Yes,” I said, catching his meaning. “Oh. You don’t suppose…”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences. Do you?”

  I shook my head. “Five women. Five moons. Five months. It has to tie together, but what is it? What could it be?”

  “I don’t know. I can do some research here while you try to contact headquarters. Maybe I could find more on the spell Hecate warned us about.”

  I agreed to that arrangement and ran upstairs to change into a halter top. When I came back down, I grabbed some tape from the desk. Archer splinted my broken feather for me, and I locked my wings away, the cloaking spell functional again. I grabbed a granola bar.

  Archer asked, “She’s never escaped before? Are you sure about that?”

  I slipped Indigo through my belt loop. “Yes. Why?”

  He shrugged. “I just wondered. She feeds on the young, you said. If she was able to escape now and then, it would explain a lot of mysteries to me.” He looked at me. “Horrors, really.”

  I met his eyes. “I told you, Archer. Evil exists within us. Don’t seek answers elsewhere. Look no further than gods and men.”

  I called to Cerberus, and after he met me in the hallway, I shut the door behind us.

  My words echoed in my head as I walked down the hallway.

  Gods and men.

  Was there a god working with a mortal? Was that how Lamia had escaped?

  I was about to find out.

  Chapter 34

  His partner was not pleased. Despite all he had done, all he had sacrificed for their plan, his partner wanted only to point out that now they were one girl short.

  “The party can’t go on without the last girl,” said his partner.

  He explained about the call from Sam, explained that he needed just a little bit more time, that tonight there would be a new girl waiting for them at the Shadow Bar.

  This seemed to appease his partner. He showed his partner the girls he did have, showed him everything he had already set in motion.

  His partner smiled.

  Redemption! he thought.

  They could work together forever. They made a great team. He knew he was worthy. He was in the presence of a mastermind—better than all of them combined. His partner made Jeffrey Dahmer look like a choirboy, and he wanted to work with him. He was over the moon.

  Soon, it would all fall into place. Soon, he would make his mark on the world. He would become a legend. He would become immortal.

  He was fixing a snack for them. A couple of beers, a plate of cheese and crackers. He worried—just for a moment—that the girl might not show tonight. What would he do then? Would his partner leave him? Abandon the whole plan?

  He put the thought right out of his mind. Of course not. Loyalty still meant something to some folks. He was certain of it.

  He wasn’t sure what the surprise was yet, but he felt a bit better about it. He decided that some surprises could be a good thing. Life should include those unexpected moments. That was what made it so much fun.

  Except
when he turned around—when he saw his partner standing there with that look on his face, something hiding behind him—he thought maybe surprises weren’t so good after all.

  One of the girls screamed.

  The plate of cheese and crackers crashed to the floor.

  His partner raised his hand, pointed at the center of his forehead. “I had hopes for you. For us. I thought you would serve me well, but, alas, you have failed me.”

  He couldn’t even scream as his partner peeled the skin right off his body.

  Chapter 35

  I stood before the statue of the three Graces in the center of the lobby at Caesars Palace. Cerberus was stone-still next to me, and little Indigo was sleeping. Her tail flicked every so often as if she were dreaming.

  I opened the moonstone ring and beamed a ray of light into the eyes of the Grace closest to me. Slowly, I made my way around the statues, signaling to all three of them. Then I pulled out my portable telephone, stuck it to my ear, and waited for someone to arrive.

  After a while, I heard the voice of Thalia. “Tisiphone, lovely to see you.” Her voice was all bubbles and sunshine.

  Odd—the statue hadn’t moved, hadn’t transformed at all, as the replica of Dionysus had.

  “Thalia, thank Hades. Listen, I have an urgent message for the lords.”

  “Why are you talking to the statue, Tisi?”

  I paused, looked at the phone in my hand. Had she somehow come through the electronic device? I studied it a moment. Someone tapped my shoulder, and I spun around.

  “Hi, Tisi.”

  Thalia was standing behind me. She was a slight goddess with tightly wound dark hair, a Cupid’s-bow mouth, and wide, bright eyes. She was wearing a polka-dotted halter dress and red heels.

  I looked from her to the sculpture and back again.

  She giggled a joyous carnival ride laugh. “When we’re here, the signal comes direct. I don’t need to transmit through the statue.”

  “I see.”

  “Are you on holiday?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid I have business here.” I scanned the lobby. “Perhaps we should find a more private location to talk.”

  Thalia’s smile melted away. “Of course.”