by Jenn Stark
“That’s right, hon, own the floor. Nothing’s hotter than confidence in a corset.” She turned to a second bride, and I hunkered down in my pew, glad enough for a few minutes more of rest.
The pew creaked, and Nikki glanced back with sharp focus, then waved at me with a wide smile. “Great timing, doll. We’re finishing up.” A few minutes later she ushered the brides on their way, then she strode back to me, her beret jaunty on her head.
“You looking for me or Dixie? Because Dix—“
“Is talking to Brody, I know.”
She leaned on the pew railing and eyeballed me, her painstakingly feathered brows arched high on her forehead. “I told you he wasn’t interested in her.”
“It’s fine.” Something was definitely wrong with my throat. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Don’t ever try that line in public, okay, sugar? Because you seriously suck at it.” Nikki tilted her head. “And unless you want Dixie to know you and Brody were a thing—”
“We weren’t a ‘thing.’ He was ten years older than me, and I had a crush on him. That’s not a ‘thing.’ I was a stupid kid.”
“Uh-huh. Well, unless you want Dixie to know that you’re still a stupid kid, time to turn that frown upside down.” She grinned. “Welcome back to Vegas, by the way. What brings you down to the chapel?”
“Information.” I blew out a breath. “I need to know what the Connecteds are talking about, if there’s any chatter.”
“There’s always chatter.” She shrugged. “Nothing specific that I know of, though. You want to get Dixie?”
I winced. That’s why I’d come here, but now that the moment was upon me, I didn’t really feel like interrupting the flashy, big-eyed astrologer, not if she was on the make for one of Las Vegas’s finest. I thought of the business card in my pocket. Grimm’s Antiques. “There are some other angles we could run down, first, I guess,” I said, happy for the reprieve. “You have the Council’s car in the lot?”
Nikki’s grin widened. “I got something better. C’mon.”
Chapter Six
We exited the chapel onto the driveway beneath an enormous archway festooned with giant plaster roses. On either side of the exit to the street sat large topiaries carved into the shape of champagne flutes. Between them sat a whale of a white limo. On its side was emblazoned a pink-and-white banner proclaiming The Chapel of Everlasting Love in the Stars.
“Tell me you’re joking.”
“Dix likes me to tool around in this every so often to remind new visitors in town that if love is on their mind, we’ve got the chapel for them. There are giveaway cards offering a sample horoscope reading too. You should try one. They’re fun.” She waved her keys, and the doors popped their locks. I reluctantly got inside.
“This isn’t exactly incognito.”
“We going to take down a mob boss today?”
“Well, no.”
“Then relax. In Vegas, driving around in a gaudy limo is pretty much going undercover. It’s part of the scenery. Buckle in, or the damned thing will start playing the Wedding March. Ain’t nobody in this car wants to hear that.” She eased the car off the driveway and slipped into traffic. “Where are we headed?”
I thought about the notes I’d jotted down at the hotel, after plundering the Magician’s thumb drive. Then I thought about the business card I’d found in my pocket. When in doubt, always pick go with the crazy first.
“You familiar with Grimm’s Antiques?”
She tilted her head. “Off Flamingo? Sure. Haven’t been in there in years, though. Why?”
“I need to talk to someone in Vegas who’s known for collecting artifacts—not the big and obvious ones, but more your back-alley art gallery kind of thing. The sort of place that seems legit but really is barely more than a pawn shop. Someone who might maybe be into the arcane black market too.”
She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “Grimm’s is run by an old guy, or it was. Like I said, it’s been years. He might be dead. Or they might have stuffed him and put him on display too.”
“How long has he been working there?” I had my phone out, fingers poised. Anything to avoid the neat pile of marketing flyers that sat on the console between Nikki and me. I wasn’t going to be handing out cards like we were trolling for an escort service.
Nikki snorted. “Don’t even try finding him on the Internet. Grimm’s Antiques is about as wired as a ball of lint. I’d be shocked if he had a Yellow Pages ad, let alone a website. Better for us to just go.”
We idled at a light, and Nikki poked a red lacquered nail at the stack of flyers. “Earn your keep, dollface. Give out a few of those.” She leaned over, me focusing on a knot of college girls waiting for the light to change. “Hey, ladies!” Nikki elbowed me in the kidney, hard, and I grabbed a half-dozen brochures, shoving them through the window. “You keep us in mind if you find the man of your dreams tonight, ’kay?”
The girls laughed and leaned against each other, clearly delighted by our enormous white limo with its pink-trimmed seats. I passed out a fistful of flyers before the light mercifully changed.
“You seriously have to do this for Dixie?”
“I don’t have to do anything for anyone but myself, sweetheart. Those days are long gone. I do this because I get a kick out of it. And you never know when cupid’s arrow will strike next. Dixie’s a real believer in true love.”
“Her wedding chapel has a drive-thru option.”
“She’s also a believer in efficiency.”
We hit three more red lights before we turned off the main strip at Flamingo Road, and I scanned up past the real building to take in the soaring shadow casino of Scandal, which the Devil called home.
Nikki gave a low whistle. “That was one fine hunk of demigodliness, I have to agree,” she said, though I hadn’t said anything. “You see him since that night? He’s not been mingling among the rank and file.”
“They do that a lot? Mingle?” I angled in my seat to eye her as we motored up the street. Given the length of the limo, parking was going to be a bit of a challenge.
“Often enough. Their homes may not show up to un-Connecteds, but the Council isn’t invisible, if that’s what you mean. I’ve seen the High Priestess and Armaeus out, definitely. And the Fool. He favors the tech shows, mostly, but I’ll see him on the street. As to the Devil—hell, he may have made an appearance in the past week, but not that I recall, and believe me, I would have recalled.” She gave a small grunt of satisfaction. “Here we go. We’ll pull in here and lock down tight. No one will bother us.”
She parked in a space in front of a Vegas-themed gift shop and tugged the beret and scarf from her head. “Just another girl getting her shopping on.” She fluffed her hair in the mirror. I’d never once seen Nikki adjust her makeup in all the times we’d driven through Vegas. It was like she applied it with a death threat, and it stayed put until she told it to move.
We headed down the street, the storefronts remarkably nondescript for being this close to the Strip, but they were clean, well cared for. And there was some foot traffic, just not the typical Vegas tourist crowd. No frat boys or sorority specials, no middle-aged Midwesterners clutching plastic cups they hoped to fill with tokens. It felt almost like small-town America… In a small town whose main street hawked wigs and burlesque wear, anyway.
“Where has this been all my life?” Nikki sighed as we slowed in front of the wig shop. “I really have to get out more often.”
“Go ahead. Grimm’s is right there.” I gestured to a faded shop sign. “It might be better for me to tool around on my own at first.”
“True.” Nikki eyed me. “We really do need to work on your style, though. You can’t keep looking like a homeless person who raided a Hot Topic.”
I gave her a push. “Go. Come get me in ten minutes if I’m not already out of the store.”
Nikki opened the door of the wig shop amid a clanging peal of bells, and I moved up the sidewalk. I caught sight of
my reflection in the mirror—lightweight hoodie, black tank, black tights, boots. Okay, so, clothes weren’t really my thing, but Hot Topic? Seriously?
I frowned, thinking about Dixie with her soft blonde curls and pink cowboy hat, her perfectly curved cupid’s lips smiling at Brody. Was she his type? Did he have a type?
Focus. Brody was a cop, and that was all that mattered. Cops weren’t something I needed in my line of work. Yet another reason to get the hell out of the city after I wrapped this job. My work with Eshe had an expiration date of the oracle twins leaving Vegas. That was going to happen any day, which meant I was almost home free.
The storefront of Grimm’s Antiques had the veneer of elegance even as it stood almost invisible between a used bookstore and a bondsman. The windows were framed in actual polished wood, and the front door boasted a small gold placard that stated no solicitors were allowed. On the shelves within the windows, several items of jewelry were nestled lovingly in black velvet—rings, cuffs, a torque that looked impressively old. Some of the items seemed expensive, but most didn’t. The perfect lure for the amateur collector.
I pushed inside the door.
Unlike Nikki’s wig shop, there was no happy peal of bells. There was no one inside the shop, period; though I suspected somewhere there was a camera recording my entrance. It smelled of dust and old books, and I glanced to the walls. Sure enough, Grimm’s Antiques also featured leather-bound tomes that gleamed with age. I suspected most of those books hadn’t been moved since the turn of the century. I drifted toward them, then got waylaid by low cases filled with shimmering gold coins. They appeared Roman, but something about them niggled at me, poking at a memory deep in my brain. like they weren’t exactly right. Copies? Fakes? Or simply a variation on the usual selection. It’d been a while since I’d studied coinage. Typically, the artifacts I was charged to find weren’t used in normal commerce.
I leaned forward for a closer look when a shuffling noise drew my attention. “May I help you find something specific?”
The man who spoke was small and hunched, thin as a whisper and just as bold. His skin was pale but curiously smooth. His eyes were nearly black. He wore a threadbare suit that hung on his slender frame, but I got the sense that it wasn’t due to poverty or illness that he dressed so shabbily. His sheet-metal-gray hair gleamed with a light oil that caught in the soft yellow lights, and his manner was watchful.
I knew better than to ask his name. Nothing made you sound creepier than asking someone to identify themselves. Instead, I went for near honesty. Easier that way.
I beamed at the man. “Hi. I’m in town for the collectibles convention later this week, and I know next to nothing about this stuff.” I gave an embarrassed hand flutter. “I would love to walk in with at least a passing understanding of what’ll be there.”
“Ah, the Rarity.” It was impossible to tell if Mr. Thin was judging me or the event, but I caught the faint whiff of a sneer in his tone. “Not the best show for a novice.”
“Probably true,” I sighed, willing myself not to punch the man in the throat. Really, we’d just met. I needed to learn restraint. “But I got this freelance job for a travel blog, and it sounds really cool. I think it’ll make a great story.” I glanced around brightly. “Is this your store? Like, are you the manager here?”
“I own Grimm’s, yes.” The man straightened a little, puffing out his chest. “It’s been in our family since we came to Las Vegas.”
“Oh my God, really?” I widened my eyes appreciatively. “How long ago was that, then?”
“How long has the store been here? Ah.” He seemed surprised by the question. “Since nineteen forty-five. A good year.”
“And you’ve made a living selling antiques? All this time?”
The disbelief in my voice was leavened by enough wonder that Mr. Thin hopefully didn’t take offense. “For the discerning seller, there is always a market.” He nodded. “And there are always new discoveries to be made, and new entrants to the field.” His gracious smile intimated that I might be one of those new entrants, and I had to hand it to the dude, he was sucking me in. I wanted to be a part of this discerning group of discerners, all of whom were discerningly rich enough to buy gold.
“So will you be at the Rarity too? Or is that not really your thing?”
His smile didn’t waver. “It’s not, but the show is rarely in Las Vegas. That it is this year is somewhat of a surprise.”
“Yeah? I’d think Vegas would be perfect for that kind of convention.”
“Las Vegas is a bastion of new money, not old. Shops like mine”—he waved to include the gleaming cases and the empty spaces in between—“are the true rarity. For a show to bring old gold to Vegas is a very special event.”
“What prompted it, do you know?” I stopped shy of clasping my hands together under my chin in unabashed wonder, but it was a near thing.
“I do.” He smiled, and every one of my nerve endings pricked up. There was something almost…familiar about that smile. Then he went on, completely not answering my question. “What sort of artifacts are you interested in?”
“Oh gosh, I don’t know.” I gave my best aw-shucks shrug and pointed at the case beside me. “I’ve done some studying up on coins, but I think I’ll have to do more. These look sort of Roman, but I’ve never seen them before.”
He stepped forward, the huckster in him unwilling to stay hidden. “They are…quite unique. That case is fortified with special glass because I simply could not keep such a treasure hidden from public view. Everyone who enters my shop is drawn to them.” He was drawn to them too, clearly. He walked all the way up to the case, then dropped a light hand on its edge. He leaned forward, and I did too. The mirrored bottom of the case reflected upward around the coins, and I frowned, distracted as I noticed something else odd in the case.
Grimm’s voice drew me back. “What I was told when I acquired these coins were that they were from Atlantis.”
I blinked at him, this time completely without artifice. “No way.”
“Indeed.” He drew his odd hands along the surface of the case. “I found that ridiculous of course, but I could not find an exact match to the coins. After a while, I stopped looking. It became too romantic to believe that they might have been part of a lost civilization.”
“How much do those kind of coins go for?” Armaeus wouldn’t be stealing these, not from a dealer so open with his display. But he could outright buy them if he wanted them. And given his penchant for Atlantean trinkets, most of which I was sure were fake, he’d definitely be wanting these.
“Oh, they’re not for sale. They’re part of my personal collection.” Mr. Thin smiled and took his hand away from the case.
“But if you would sell them, what would they go for? Like, say they were your typical Roman coin of that era.”
He shrugged. “Depending on the condition of the coin, anywhere from a thousand dollars to perhaps twenty thousand. It’s a very accessible market.”
Accessible to trust funders maybe. Still, trust funders were my kind of people. Maybe I should broaden my area of expertise. “Well, these are really cool. Think I might find some more this weekend?”
“You’ll not find anything like them at the Rarity, I’m afraid. Or if so, I have not been made aware of them. And I assure you, my information is quite good.”
“Fair enough.” Another winning smile. “What will be there, then?” I pointed at the case. “Atlantis is a myth, yet here are these coins. Will I find that kind of thing—pieces based on mythology or legends?”
He regarded me with the first thread of suspicion. “Is that what you will put in your article?”
“Well, it would be cool—if they had such a thing. But straight-up gold is cool too.”
“Straight-up gold is the province of the Rarity. Any mythology attributed to their pieces is, I assure you, strictly a fool’s tale to get you to buy something for more money.”
“Good to know. So, again, will you
be going?”
Mr. Thin blinked at my sudden change of tack. “I will make an appearance. I have many colleagues who will be in attendance, from all points in the world.”
“That’s so great. I’ll be going to the opening-night-gala thing. Who’ll be there who’s awesome? Like, who’s the biggest wig of all?”
“I suspect you will determine that easily enough on your own.”
“Oh, c’mon.” I decided to play on my hunch. I leaned forward toward the man, never mind that he was at least forty years my senior, and gave him a slow-eyed stare. “I haven’t found anyone in the city able to give me the information I need. It’s all I really want, and I want it from you.”
To his credit, Mr. Thin didn’t flinch. Instead, his smile widened, and I could feel him lean closer to me, too, a con warming to his kill. “And what would you be interested in trading for this information?”
“I suspect you have something in mind.” I lifted a hand and turned it, my fingers skimming down the side of his—
The image flickered just enough.
“Got you,” I smiled.
Chapter Seven
Mr. Grimm’s hand closed around mine, pinning my hand to his cheek. The shock of the electric pulse lifted me off my toes for a half second as I watched his face shift to one of such heartbreaking beauty, if I hadn’t already seen it, I would probably have fainted dead away.
“When did you know?” Aleksander Kreios asked me.
The Devil’s outfit was largely unchanged from Mr. Grimm’s attire, but in much better repair. His suit jacket hung open, the white silk of his shirt gleaming and his bronze skin peeking through his open collar. His hair was blond, but instead of the casually windblown style it’d rocked the last time we worked together, the Devil had slicked his hair into submission with the aplomb of a New York model. The refined overlay of an expensive timepiece was the perfect addition.
He squeezed my hand, recalling me to his question. “Your smile was the first thing,” I said. “It slipped and became pure avarice. Which fit the old man but seemed too young, too hungry.” I pulled my hand away to avoid electrocuting myself. “But the real tip-off was your fingers.”