If what she wanted was really there.
Rumor claimed the archives of thousands of years of strigoi history were stored in vaults within the hotel. These records were guarded by an ancient one, and protected by powerful spells. Char hadn’t been able to trace how this rumor had been started, or by whom, but it had come to her attention during her usual clandestine searching for all data relating to vampires. Char felt that it could all be a load of rubbish—or a trap. Why it might be a trap, and who might have set it, she didn’t know, but something just didn’t feel right. Still, insatiable hunger for knowledge more than blood or even justice drove her, and here she was. She would have come to Las Vegas even if the opportunity hadn’t easily presented itself with the invitation to Della’s wedding. Maybe it would have been easier if her curious and really quite bright Haven wasn’t along for the trip.
Of course, she never had any intention of walking into the hotel run by vampires and asking to see this so-called secret chamber. There was no reason to behave stupidly. Enforcer she might be, one of the badass Nighthawk line, but she’d rather use brains and psychic ability and keep physical distance while checking the place out. She’d always kept a low profile, and didn’t intend to change her method of operations—
I have got to turn off the word spigot in my head if I’m going to get out of my body anytime before sunset.
Char did not feel herself taking the deep breath as her lungs barely worked at this time of day, but she was very aware of the mental inhalation, of the strengthening of her will.
She imagined a door into daylight. She hadn’t experienced daylight for over a decade, but it was not so long ago that she couldn’t remember what day was like. She remembered sunlight on her skin, though she had to magnify the memory to account for climate differences. She was from Seattle, where a summer day was a very different thing than the searing brilliance of Nevada in the daytime. Fortunately she lived in Tucson now, so she had some concept of the Southwestern desert. Besides, she watched CSI religiously, and had rented the most recent version of Ocean’s Eleven for research purposes before venturing to Las Vegas.
So she conjured the door, put her hand on the warm door handle, and fought off the panicked voice that screamed up from her instincts to Beware of the Light!
Char opened the door, and thrust her soul out of her body.
And screamed in terror and pain as the sun’s molten fire poured down out of heaven to cover her in agony.
It wasn’t technically possible to pace nervously around a room while lying immobile as a brick, but Geoff Sterling wasn’t interested in technicalities. He wanted up. He wanted out.
He wasn’t alone on the bed. Valentine was lying beside him. While his skin was cold and lifeless, faint warmth emanated from hers. He could feel it all along his side, both a subtle shock and comfort. But not comforting enough to stop this sudden restless panic.
He couldn’t open his eyes to see his surroundings, yet he was vividly aware of every corner, every shadow; of the flimsy door and the wide window that overlooked the city far below. Heavy curtains kept out the daylight, kept in the coolness.
It was a perfectly suitable, ordinary upscale Las Vegas hotel room.
Anyone could get in. Anyone could find them.
Feels like a coffin, he thought, and wanted to claw desperately at the coffin’s lid. He felt as if he were locked in one of those Victorian mausoleums where they left bells attached to coffin lids so the dead could ring them in case they woke up and needed to get out.
Or at least ring for room service.
The voice interrupting his thoughts was coolly amused, and thoroughly annoyed him.
We’re vulnerable here, Geoff thought back. Can’t you feel the danger in the air?
Valentine’s silence was telling. There’s always danger in the air, the thought finally drifted into his mind. If you want to go sniffing for it.
I mean for us. Here.
The door’s locked, and warded. Don’t be silly. You act like Van Helsing’s lingering in the hallway.
Who?
Very funny. Go to sleep. Go dreamriding. Leave me alone.
I’m worried about protecting you.
We’ve got distribution meetings tonight. Worry about protecting me then.
Valentine’s lack of concern was thoroughly irritating. Or maybe she was right and his paranoia was groundless. She hadn’t mentioned the irony that she was the one normally reluctant to leave the safety of her Los Angeles lair—
Lair? Her sarcastic laughter was sharp in his mind.
If you can think about Van Helsing, I can use the term lair.
Lairs do not come with underground parking and swimming pools.
In L.A. they do. Besides, you never use the pool.
You do.
But it’s not my lair. I’m only a guest ghoul.
You pay rent.
They shared the apartment. They shared their creativity. They kept each other company. They—
Go to sleep, Valentine urged.
Geoff realized she’d distracted him enough, relaxed him enough, that he was able to try. Back when he’d only been a vampire, before the surprising transformation from ordinary night creature to Nighthawk, oblivion had been easy. He’d had no choice. With the rising of the sun he was out, dead to the world until the first moment after dusk. He’d barely learned the ability to project his dreaming self into the daylight world before the Nighthawk compulsion took him. Now real sleep was the hardest thing for him to find.
Especially when, more often than not, finding real sleep resulted in daymares that always ended with Moira Chasen’s screams.
Sometimes, like now, the dreams started with screaming.
He followed the sound. He couldn’t help himself. One moment he was drifting into darkness, the next sunlight hit him like a blow and he looked down to realize he was floating twenty stories above a busy Las Vegas street. Planes landing and taking off from the nearby airport whizzed by not that far over his head. Desert wind buffeted him, hot as flame. Geoff was tempted to scream himself as he whirled around, taking all this in. And then he began to fall.
But the woman kept screaming, and he couldn’t let it go on. He couldn’t stop it with Moira, but this didn’t sound like Moira. He couldn’t plunge into the snarl of traffic without trying to—
“Where are you?” Geoff shouted as he fell. Below, he caught a glimpse of the lake in front of the Bellagio. The fountains were beginning the first water show of the day. From up here it looked rather odd. He fought his attention away from this distraction, and shouted again. “Wher—”
“Here!” The screamer’s voice was hoarse and hysterical. “Who? Help!”
He followed the voice, caught onto the sound and followed it. One moment he was a spirit plunging uncontrollably out of his body, the next he was riding a sound wave. Cool. Something like dream riding, he decided, but different.
“Didn’t know I could do this.”
The woman screamed again. Then he saw her—a far-away speck of fire, falling like Icarus out of the sun.
The moment he saw her he was with her. He grabbed her, held her, stopped the fall. Flames swirled around them, but he didn’t feel the fire. She wasn’t mortal, he realized, and her being was no more substantial than his.
“This is so weird.”
Her scream settled into a long, piteous moan.
Geoff shook her. “What is the matter with you?”
“Burning. The light. Hurts. Burning.”
“Then stop it. You’re not really on fire.”
The woman held a flaming hand up before his face. “Am too.”
“You’re imagining it.” Geoff noted that they were now floating in the air. The city stretched out below them. It was a funny-looking place full of fantastically shaped buildings, surreal as hell even without vampires hanging in the air.
“Burning,” the woman said again. “In the light.”
“Vampires don’t do that,” he reminded her. “
We’re astral projecting,” he told her. “Dreaming. Change the dream.”
Char had no idea who this stranger was, but the other vampire’s words made sense. She was dreaming. He was holding her, and they were—She closed her eyes, not wanting to look down, or around, or into the sun. She could feel his hands on her even when all other sensory impressions disappeared. “How’d you get in my dream?”
“How’d you get in mine? I heard you scream. You’re still on fire,” he pointed out.
“Sorry.” She concentrated on putting herself out. “Better?”
“Much.”
As Char’s sense of panic ebbed, she recalled that her original purpose had been to astral project into the Silk Road. Clearly, they were not inside a hotel. With some effort she made herself open her eyes. “There’s a pyramid down there.”
“It’s the Luxor.”
“Oh.” Of course, they were in—above—Las Vegas. Or dreaming that they were. None of it felt like a dream, but must be because she was manipulating reality. At least she wasn’t on fire anymore. And they weren’t plunging toward a blood-splattered, bone-shattered landing on the sun-baked concrete below.
She looked at the vampire holding her. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, pale—well, that went without saying. There was something familiar about him, though she was sure they’d never met before. Vampires frequently didn’t meet, that was one of their problems.
“And protections,” he said.
Char bridled. “Stay out of my head.”
The other vampire glanced around. “I don’t think that’s possible, considering . . .”
Char concentrated very hard on keeping her thoughts secret, learning how to do it even as she thought about it. This was all very odd and disconcerting, but an amazing learning experience at the same time.
“I didn’t know we could do this,” the other vampire said.
“Neither did I,” Char agreed. “I bet there’s a great many things we don’t know we can do.” She didn’t mean to say this, certainly not to a stranger. A stranger, yes, but—
She took a sharp breath, recognizing what was familiar about him.
Nighthawk!
The word screamed into his head with such force that it pushed Geoff away from the woman. He grabbed his ears while the world spun. It took him a moment to realize he was falling.
When he righted himself, she was gone. The sky was empty. And he was still falling, slowly, gently, out of the light, into the dark, back to his body. He didn’t fight it. This was too weird to go on for long. Exhausting.
He’d get a good day’s sleep. Then he’d go looking for her.
Chapter 4
IN THE PARKING lot, Haven paused by his red Jeep Cherokee to take off the leather jacket he’d worn in the overly air-conditioned bar. The sleeveless black T-shirt he wore beneath the jacket hugged his body and bared muscular arms, the left decorated down most of its length with heavily inked black geometrical tattoos. He tilted his head up to hide his smirk when he saw Moll’s eyes widen in horror at the sight of his choice of body décor. Maybe Clare Murphy had been expecting a gentleman.
“You’re not a companion,” Clare said, suddenly very wary. She took a step back from the Jeep.
Haven squinted into the bright blue sky. “You people always act like that’s a bad thing. You asked me here,” he reminded her. “Talk to me or not.” He shrugged, then shaded his eyes with his hand, his attention drawn to a bright spot hovering in the air. He pointed at the light. “You see that?”
She turned to look. “What?”
“Like a—smudge—of fire.” Whatever it was he saw, he didn’t think he was seeing it with his eyes. He shook his head, trying to clear it. A cold finger ran up Haven’s backbone, and something molten clutched in his gut. Something like a moment of hot jealousy. The emotion lasted a second, then, like the fire, it was gone.
“UFO?” Murphy suggested.
There was already enough crazy stuff in their lives; they didn’t need aliens too. “Come on,” he said, and opened the passenger side door for the companion. Like a gentleman. Despite throwing him a suspicious look, she didn’t hesitate to get in. He went around to the driver’s side, tossed his jacket in the back, then climbed behind the wheel and asked, “Where to?”
“Just drive,” she said. “And we’ll talk.”
He drove. Past clubs, smaller casinos, and car dealerships. Eventually he found his way onto Interstate 15. Dust and heat haze swirled up in the distance, obscuring the view of the nearest mountain range. The woman beside him kept her silence until he finally asked, “This safe for you? Your—” He hated to say “Master,” even if that was the right term for a vampire-companion relationship. He settled for, “—boss, occupied?”
“He’s asleep. Dreaming of love.” She let out a low, dark chuckle. “He’s stalking a future companion. Ben’s attention is not on me right now.”
It didn’t sound like it bothered her too much. “You still better make this quick and get back to what you’re supposed to be doing. What are you supposed to be doing?”
“Running security at the Silk Road hotel and casino. Our whole nest is involved in this one job. Only this job.”
This did sound like it bothered her. “Think you ought to diversify?”
“We were diversified. He had a good business with a great reputation and more clients than we could handle. Then Ben gets a call from this Ibis the Ancient—”
“Ibis the Ancient? He really called that?”
She laughed. “Yes. Supposedly he’s from ancient Egypt. There’s a rumor that he’s the father of all vampires.”
“Is he?”
“Doubtful. I’ve only been able to trace his movements back a couple hundred years—”
“What with? Geneology dot com?”
“You’re DesertDog, all right.”
Haven gave her a sideways glance. “Recognize me by my sarcasm?”
“Yes. Can the wisecracks for now, please. I’ve got a lot to say and not much time to say it.”
He appreciated the risk she took. Even if her vampire boyfriend was obsessing about someone else, there was always the chance some awareness of Clare would leak into the vampire’s awareness. “Talk fast,” Haven told her. “Can I ask questions?”
“At suitable intervals.” She took a deep breath, fixed her gaze on the road rolling ahead of them, and went on. “My initial interest in this meet was to talk about Ibis, and what he keeps at the Silk Road. It’s important data, so I’ll go through it first, then get to newer, much more important information the companions’ group needs to be aware of.”
“Much more important? Maybe you should—”
“No. Useful stuff for the rebellion first. Then we’ll talk about the crisis.”
This seemed like a stupid way of doing it to Haven, especially when she used words like crisis, but he doubted he’d get the intel from her any other way. “Go ahead.”
“Never mind who he is or where he came from, the one true thing I’ve been able to discover about Ibis is that he’s a collector of vampire memorabilia. He collects stuff, other vampires entrust it to him, he’s got tons of stuff. It’s said he can see the future.”
“Stuff. What kind of stuff?”
“Documents, artifacts, data. Lots of historical data—stuff about vampires that should never have been written down.”
This definitely piqued Haven’s interest. He had no scholarly interest in vampire history, but he’d learned that knowledge was a weapon and he was very good with weapons. “You’ve seen this data? Examined it?”
“Not exactly.” She held up a hand to keep him from interrupting. “What I’ve done is set up secondary security on the vaults where he keeps the important stuff, and primary security on the artifacts on display in the hotel.” She shook her head. “Ibis is playing a huge joke, not only on the public, but on the strigoi.”
“What’s the joke?”
“The Silk Road’s built around the theme that the place is a recreation o
f a mysterious Central Asian pleasure city. There are display cases full of artifacts supposedly found by an archaeological expedition from the nineteenth century. There are jewel-encrusted books full of untranslatable ancient writings, jewels the size of ostrich eggs, erotic wall paintings, gold ceremonial dishes, ritual weapons with carved bone handles and silver blades. Incredible stuff. It’s all presented with a wink, of course, as a tall tale of wizards and lovely sorceresses with beauty so ethereal it could not survive the sun. It’s all about moonlight and starlight. Very exotic and sensual—a place of earthly delights and magical wonder—without any mention of blood sacrifice and slavery.”
Her matter-of-fact tone had become increasingly bitter. She paused for a moment, and took a few steadying breaths before she went on.
“I can tell you that none of the stuff in those cases is fake. Those artifacts are old, and they’re authentic. The truth is, the Silk Road hotel and casino is based on the city the vampires built in Central Asia.”
“The city—”
“Really existed,” she finished for him. “I’ve gotten a good look at the magical artifacts. Ritual implements,” she explained. “Heavy with magic. I don’t know what the writing on the gold vessels says, but it twists my guts into knots to look at it. Most of the tourists don’t notice, but I’ve got lots of videotape of people passing by the cases. I can tell how much psychic ability anyone has by the looks on their faces.” She gave a bitter laugh, and added, “There’s a stage magician working in the hotel who gets a hard-on every time he goes near the display. Sick bastard doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to be Ben’s new companion. But the display cases are just for show.”
“The books—are they spell books?”
“Very likely.”
“Can you get at them?”
“I can. But unless we can translate them, it isn’t worth the risk. It’s the data Ibis keeps hidden that we need to access. There are secret histories, diaries, every kind of information we need to put ourselves on an equal footing with even master strigoi. Vampires are made by magic, but they aren’t the only magic users in the world.”
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