by Jenn Stark
“Items like the gold scroll cases?”
“On occasion, sure. But those weren’t his scroll cases. They’re Fuggeren’s. So Fuggeren was my client on that job.” Granted, Armaeus was my original client and Fuggeren the tagalong after the fact, but details.
“That’s pretty—” Whatever comment he was about to make was cut off by the racket of his phone. He pulled the device out of his pocket and thumbed it on. “Detective Rooks.”
I turned to leave, but he held up a finger. I offered him one of my own and was out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“He’s on to you, you know.”
I sat with Nikki at the SLS outdoor bar, scanning the pool area. By the time I’d hooked up with her, she and the rest of the visiting Connecteds had decamped from the chapel in search of cooler territory in the face of the scorching afternoon. The SLS pool was packed, but the crowd wasn’t your typical college or twenty-something crush. It was like the entire Midwest had emptied out of their RVs and into the SLS, and everyone was waiting for the church fair to begin. “Brody. He suspects you’re a lot more than what you seem.” I decided not to mention the word “natterclack.”
“Yeah, well, that’d be the detective part of Detective Dishy.” Nikki took a long pull on her bourbon and soda, squinting into the sun. Today she wore a white miniskirt paired with red canvas platform high-tops, white knee socks banded at the top with red stripes, and a faded Converse all-star tank top artfully cut to show off her industrial-strength bright red sports bra. Her auburn hair was in pigtails, and her star-shaped sunglasses took up the top half of her face. “He say anything specific, or did he just get really low and growl, ‘I’m on to her, you know’?”
I smiled, relaxing for the first time all day. “I think he knows you’re not just another pretty face is all. He hasn’t taken the time to dig.”
“Tell him I’m an open book. Anytime he wants to riffle my pages, he knows where to find me. Dixie’s had her chance at him, and you aren’t grabbing that low-hanging fruit, so to speak. Somebody’s gotta.”
“I’ll let him know.” Armaeus’s call had been to inform Brody that more of the Rarity gold had been recovered at the Luxor, hiding among the kitsch. I knew this not because Brody had told me, but because Armaeus had mentally mute-conferenced me into the phone call as I’d stalked out of the station house. Way better than Skype.
That was no more an “intriguing development” than a Tinder breakup, though. So either Armaeus wanted me out of Brody’s mitts for his own reasons, or he had some other development to inform me about, and he needed me in the clear to do it. Either way, he hadn’t uttered another peep, so I’d decided to check in on the crowd at SLS.
The solstice celebration had technically started earlier today, but there remained way too many of them. “What are they all still doing here? I thought the Rarity was winding down.”
“It’s in its final day, with the triumphant return of Fuggeren’s scroll cases, though the savviest connoisseurs are convinced the ones on display now are fakes. No point tempting the gods by putting them out there a second time to grab. But remember, these people aren’t here for that. They’re still waiting for some kind of Psychic Rapture, which they’re convinced will be at sundown, tonight. We’ve got a whole parade planned down to the Bellagio fountains, where their visions told them they’d have the best view. We tried to talk them down from it, but nothing doing. It’s nuts.” She eyeballed me. “They think you’re someone special, by the way.”
I frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“Their visions.” Nikki waved a hand. “Some of them have seen you, seen you do great things. Bathed in light, shining through a storm, the whole nine yards.”
“Armaeus is behind those visions, Nikki. Roxie wasn’t lying about that.”
“Some of them, sure. But not all of them, babe. You got skillz, I’m telling you. Sooner or later you’ve got to own that.”
“I’ve overreached myself before.” I shook my head, shoving the old memories away. “I’m not going to make that mistake again.”
“Child, you—”
“Where are the witches in all this?” I interrupted her. “I haven’t heard anything from them since they crashed the diner. Do they still think all hell’s going to break loose?”
“I don’t think so. Danae and the gang have been nose to the bedrock for the past three days. I’m not much on my ley line configurations, but they’re pretty sure that the city’s grid will hold. Hold what, they’re not saying, but hold.”
“Maybe SANCTUS knows that Armaeus got a hold of the scroll cases and they’ve called everything off.” I blew out a breath, taking in the crowd. “There are just so many Connecteds here.”
“More than we imagined possible. More than Dixie can handle, you want to know the truth. She’s beginning to sound like a camp counselor off her meds.” Nikki shook her head. “Those who don’t know better are all abuzz with excitement. The ones who do know better don’t know whether to get the hell out of Vegas or stay. If it is the Rapture, no one wants to be left behind, you know? Not when the deep end of the ocean is hella more dark than it’s ever been. And Roxie has returned to the fold with a vengeance, dispensing her little gems of wisdom to the masses pretty much every hour, on the hour. At least up until this morning. Then solstice hit and she had everyone rapt with attention—except then she warned them all that the real celebration wouldn’t be ‘til, you guessed it, sundown.”
I looked at the sky. Sundown wasn’t all that far off. “She say anything useful?”
“Nothing we can hold her to.” Nikki shrugged. “She’s keeping them here, which I’m against, but she’s keeping them happy, which I’m all for. Still, for someone incarnated as recently as the seventies, something’s…wrong with her.”
I quirked her a glance. “Not like you to judge.”
“I’m not talking her plastic surgery. She just—bugs me. I don’t know if she’s scared or got something up her sleeve, but she feels off to me.”
I considered that. What I’d been able to find on Roxie Meadows hadn’t been super conclusive. While she’d been huge in the sixties and seventies, the party stop for musicians and celebrities from all over the world, her flamboyance had simmered down markedly with her accession to the Council. Part of that was because of her discretion, what with the whole anti-aging thing she had going on, but I agreed with Nikki. There was something more there. “Anything more from the Devil?”
“Not a peep. He’s not anywhere, Eshe isn’t anywhere. It’s like a storm is rolling in, but we don’t know from what direction, or whether to bring our umbrellas or snow shovels.”
I slanted my gaze to the east, at the far horizon. I couldn’t see it beyond the towering Arcana Casinos. In the waning day, the trans-dimensional homes of the Council were almost indiscernible, the bare shift of a shadow or refraction of light. They were there, but they served merely to make me feel more insulated, not less. Not insulated, exactly. Trapped.
Nikki wasn’t a mind reader, but her next words nailed it anyway. “It’s like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it’s going to be square on our heads.”
I nodded. “The Rarity’s big closing bash and auction happens this evening, and it’s solstice, and everyone here seems wired for sound. Part of me wants to lock them all down, but part me thinks they’ll be safer in the open, mingling with un-Connecteds. Safety in numbers and all.”
She nodded to the floatie-and-fairy-wand crowd in the pool. “We couldn’t lock down this crowd without the National Guard. The alcohol started flowing at six a.m., and really hit once the official solstice mark was passed. It’s giving a whole new meaning to the last man standing. I don’t know if they’re scared or excited or simply that desperate to drink the Kool-Aid.”
“Technoceuticals?”
“Not that we can tell. But that shit has so many variants, who would know?”
“Where’s Roxie now?”
“Turtled up. D
ixie was supposed to meet with her after her big speech, but the old girl split. Her assistant called instead, said Madame was indisposed and not feeling well, and needed to recover. Put off Dixie until next week.”
“By next week, it could be too late.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“So we should go to her house and get her, right? See what’s really going on?”
She grinned. “My thoughts exactly.”
Before we could move, the waiflike blonde that Dixie had befriended, Naeve, came rushing around the corner. “Aura reader, heads up,” Nikki breathed.
I wasn’t too worried, but then the woman stopped in front of us, panting with excitement. “Have either of you seen Dixie?” she gasped. “I—her cop friend, the cute one? He’s been—”
Her gaze swung to me almost before the words were out. Nikki’s hand nudged mine, and a wave of pure ease and detachment washed through me, a total instant Zen massage. The woman finished, and I blinked at her, trying to hear her voice over the rush of birdsong and ocean breezes.
“Injured?” I frowned. “Really?”
“Well—that’s what I heard.” Naeve stumbled back a step, tilting her head. “You know him too, right?”
Nikki snorted. “I don’t think any warm-blooded woman in Vegas doesn’t know Detective McHottiedom.” Dixie sashayed around the corner, and Nikki glanced up, casting a lazy glance over her bourbon. “There’s Dixie now, if you want to give her the news yourself.”
“Oh! Yes—” The woman turned and dashed off, and Nikki removed her hand from mine.
“What the hell was that about?”
“Which part?”
“Was she trying to provoke a reaction or is Brody really hurt?”
“If he was, you really think that child would have picked up on it? No. She’s purely an aura girl.” She eyeballed me. “She was trying for yours, big-time. Dixie isn’t known for being subtle, so ordinarily she’d ask you straight out. But this Brody thing has her tied up. She knows there’s still something between you two beyond the whole Sariah Pelter business, and she doesn’t understand what.”
“There’s nothing between Brody and me. She can have him whenever she’d like.”
“Yeah, we’re all believing that.” Nikki drained her glass. “But, we can let that bucket of crazy simmer for a while. Instead, let’s go see what Roxie has cooking. Stop off first at the hotel, so I can spruce up, ’kay?”
“I think you look great.”
“Well, that’s certainly true.” She cocked a hip. “But I have the perfect thing for skulking through expensive houses, and I’d hate to pass up the opportunity.”
We stood, and Dixie strolled up to us, happier than I’d seen her in a while, if still harried. The aura-reading elf had skipped merrily on her way, and I felt a small pang in my chest. If Dixie was super into Brody, who was I to horn in on that? I had my hands full with Armaeus anyway. And about six jobs lined up in the queue. I needed a romantic entanglement like a hole in the head.
“Nikki!” Dixie fairly bounced, her smile including both of us. “I’m glad I caught you.” She was straight-up Stepford wife today, in a sundress and tennis bracelet, her pedicured toes peeking out of strappy sandals and her hair bigger than Texas. “Tell me you’ve got a plan for the parade up to the Bellagio?”
“You mean the best party ever? Why yes, yes, I do. Starts at dusk, rocks till dawn.”
My phone jangled in my pocket, which startled me. I didn’t know I was carrying a phone. “Sorry,” I said, taking the opportunity for what it was worth. I held the phone to my ear and stepped away, toward the main exit of the SLS.
“Miss Wilde! I’m so glad you picked up. This is the front desk at the Palazzo. We’ve left several messages on your room phone.”
I frowned. “Um, I’ve been out of town for a few days. Is there a problem with the room—the bill or anything?” Armaeus had been putting me up at the Palazzo for long enough, I supposed. Probably time for me to check into more economy digs.
“No, not exactly,” the clerk said, recalling me. “You’ve had a package left for you at the front desk, and it’s… Well, we think it’d be best if you retrieved it.”
“A package?” Had Nikki been ordering from QVC again? “I’m sorry. I hope it isn’t spoiling or anything.”
“No, no, nothing like that. It would be best if you could fetch it, though.” The man’s voice was strained, and I shrugged. I scowled over at Nikki.
“You didn’t order anything into the hotel, did you?”
She thought about it. “If the Thunder from Down Under has shown up, they’re definitely mine.”
I rolled my eyes. “Meet you there.”
She waved me on, she and Dixie head to head, and I made my way through the sun worshipers to the front of the SLS. The walk to the Palazzo wasn’t far, even in the blistering heat. By the time I reached the front lobby of my palatial hotel, however, I was wringing with sweat. Forget Nikki’s change of clothes. I needed one.
I made a beeline for the front desk. “Hi, I’m Sara Wilde in room—”
“Miss Wilde, thank you.” The clerk beamed at me. “I’m so glad you picked up my call.”
“How’d you get that number, anyway? It’s, ah, a new phone.”
“Mr. Bertrand provided it to us. I do hope that’s all right?”
Armaeus’s telepathy of an hour earlier filtered through my memory. A “development,” he’d said. “How long have you had this package?”
“A day or so. But it—well, you’ll see. Please come with me.”
I moved into the space behind the counter, through the door into what appeared to be an extended coat closet. At the end of the narrow passage, the corridor branched off in two directions. The desk attendant turned right. “We ordinarily keep residents’ packages under lock and key until they request them. We scan everything, of course, for electronic or other explosive devices.”
I stared at him in horror. “Do not tell me someone sent me a bomb here.”
“Oh no!” He blinked at me. “But it’s, well…odd.”
We rounded the corner, and I could understand what he meant, immediately.
The package was a metal box, a padded envelope sealed with packing tape at its top. And it was humming.
“Ahhh…” I bit my lip. “You’ve had it scanned for a bomb?”
“There are no electronics inside it whatsoever. We were going to call someone from Techzilla if we couldn’t get hold of you today. It’s not causing any harm, but it’s…a little unnerving.
“Yeah, I can see that.” As I approached the box, the humming grew softer, stopping when I stood right in front of it. Beside me, the man’s eyes goggled.
I smiled brightly at him. “Well, hey! Looks like it’s happy to see me. I’ll take it upstairs.”
“Will you—would you mind letting us know what’s inside?”
I blinked. “I thought you scanned it. Don’t you already know?”
He shrugged, his cheeks reddening. “That’s the thing…nothing. There’s nothing inside it at all. It’s, well, an empty box.”
As it turned out…not exactly.
I was still considering the thing—definitely not touching it—when Nikki sailed into my room thirty minutes later, double-checking herself at the door.
“Doll, what in God’s creation is that? And where has it been all my life?”
I grimaced, leaning back on the sofa seat as she strode farther into the room. “That,” I said, “is a crown originally worn by Genghis Khan, which I acquired for a client who was most insistent that it was going to be the answer to all his dreams. Unfortunately, said client is not answering his phone, or his text, or his e-mail, and there was nothing in the box besides this thing, in all its Mongolian glory.” Nikki stepped forward. “Don’t touch it,” I held up my hand. “At least not directly. The last time I did, I woke up an entire army of bad guys.”
“And it’s here because…”
I sighed. “Apparently, ther
e’s been a development.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Magician wasn’t answering his phone either, and after another full hour of trying to raise my client in Ulaanbaatar, we gave up. Stowing the helmet in the hotel room safe proved a nonstarter, since it instantly started humming again. Loudly. In fact, anytime I got more than fifteen feet away from the thing, the humming kicked up.
After much discussion, we ended up stowing it in a messenger bag, which Nikki refused to carry since it didn’t go with her outfit. Besides, she reasoned, she was already packing a gun. She didn’t want to weigh herself down.
We had barely enough time to visit Roxie before the Connected parade was due to hit the Strip. At that point, we’d need to be back at Ground Zero, with every Council member reporting for duty along with Armaeus and his scroll case of doom, just to be safe. And again, maybe the crowd of revelers would work to our advantage. Maybe SANCTUS would decide that solstice night wasn’t the best time for Armageddon, given how many un-Connecteds would be caught in the crossfire.
Maybe.
As we tooled up the curving drive toward Roxie’s, however, something was definitely off. There was no one in the guardhouse, no sprightly valet to come out to greet us. The place was deserted. As in deserted, deserted. Shouldering my messenger bag, I stepped out of the car with Nikki, and we moved up the palatial steps with increasing speed.
“This isn’t good.” Nikki stopped me with an outstretched hand, then proceeded up the last several steps without me, the gun that had been tucked into her waistband now out and up. I had my own gun hidden in my hoodie, but my fingers were already tingling.
The front door stood ajar, and there were signs of forced entry. Based on the blank screen of the security system inside the door, the electronics in the house were disabled. Nikki shot me a glance. “You going to call Brody?”
“Hmmm.” I weighed my options. “Prolly should.” He’d wanted me as his informant. It was probably to my advantage to play along. And yet…