But how could she rat out one of Jimmy Bluecorn’s kids?
“You’re having an ethical dilemma, aren’t you?” He gently took the champagne glass from her hand and set both their glasses on the nearest table.
“How can you tell?” she asked when he turned back to her. “Is smoke coming out of my ears?”
“That was last day,” he said, and took her by the arm.
“When I was on fire.”
“When I saved your life.”
“That was a dream.”
“You didn’t think so at the time.” He moved with her toward the door.
She was aware of Jebel tensing behind her, but she could not take her attention away from Geoff Sterling. She didn’t dare take her attention from him. He was a loose cannon. He had to be up to something. He put on his sunglasses.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he said.
“All right,” she said, and went out with him into the night.
Baker put a hand on Haven’s arm as he started to go after the vampires. “What’s with that guy?” Baker asked. “I couldn’t get near them. I couldn’t hear them. Was he using some kind of vampire force field? Can they do that? Or was it your girlfriend?”
Haven shook off Baker’s hand, but he turned to the other man rather than follow his impulse. “I don’t know,” was his answer to all Baker’s questions.
Had Sterling exerted influence on them? Everyone in the room had psychic ability to one extent or another. Baker and Santini’s gifts were very low level, but they had enough to be exploited by vampires.
“Della and Santini weren’t paying attention to Char and Sterling. And I was being polite,” Haven finally concluded.
“I wasn’t,” Baker answered. He put his big, broad frame in front of Haven. “What’s Char doing with that vampire? Where are they going? Hunting?”
“She doesn’t hunt humans,” Haven reminded Baker. “You know that.”
“Do I? Really? Do you?”
“The girl thinks she’s a superhero, a protector of humanity. Why won’t you get that through your head?”
“My head’s on right, yours never has been. And you’ve gotten worse since you started fucking the dead.”
Haven didn’t answer that crack. He did not want this confrontation, wasn’t going to take any bait. Restraint from him? Who’d have thought it possible? Today he’d found out he needed to protect Char from vampires. He hated the thought of having to protect her from one of the few humans he called friend. There was no question he’d take out Baker if he had to, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to think about it.
And where was Char when he was faced with a pair of crises? Off somewhere with another vampire, a Hollywood-handsome, smooth-as-silk, way-too-full-of-himself asshole who had a look in his eye Haven definitely didn’t like.
It was a good thing for everyone involved that vampires didn’t fuck each other. If they did, Haven would let himself be more jealous than concerned about Char going off with the stranger.
“I still don’t like it.”
“I don’t like anything about this trip,” Baker said.
Haven wondered where the vampires were going, and only one place occurred to him. He’d been planning on checking the place out anyway. And Char might need backup if she went in there. Shit! She didn’t know about the vampire plot against the Enforcers.
“You thirsty?” he asked Baker.
Baker still looked pissed off, but he nodded curtly. Making the assumption that Haven was up to something, he abandoned the argument. “Champagne’s never been my drink.”
“Good. Let’s drop the bride and groom off at their hotel, then head for a bar at the Silk Road.”
The bar was called the Caravanserai, of course. Three steps and a half-circle of arches and pillars separated it from the casino floor. A fountain played in the middle of the room, the tinkling of water counterpoint to the song of the slot machines not too far away. The Caravanserai was decorated in blue and white tile and Persian rugs, the tables were low, carved, and inlaid, with colorful cushions piled around them rather than chairs. The cocktail waitresses were dressed in short, clinging red silk costumes, with silver belts and anklets that jingled when they moved.
At this time of night the bartenders on duty were usually a pair of vampires, but Ben noticed that mortals had taken the late shift tonight. Martina’s nest was slacking off. Ben didn’t really mind, as he didn’t want to be around any of her crew. Maybe he’d complain to Ibis about it. Or maybe he’d let it go, since this might not be a good time to have the ancient vampire’s attention on him.
He sat with his back to the wall and a clear view of the entrance and took a good look around the place, all out of long habit. There were a few empty tables, but business was all right. No one had noticed him enter, and the mortal tourists paid him no mind as he sat nursing a drink made of Kahlúa and strong coffee. There was a certain amount of psychic energy in the room, normal, low-level stuff. Any crowd had a few with the gift, but Ben felt no indication that anyone in the place had ever tasted a drop of vampire blood.
No spies, he decided. No one watching. He didn’t expect any, but he’d found in his mortal life that paranoia was a good trait to cultivate. He liked to keep his business private.
He placed several objects on the shining tiles of the table, and waited. It wasn’t long before he felt Reese approaching. Keeping his gaze on the large red stone, Ben allowed anticipation to build as the fireball of magical energy grew closer. He didn’t look up until Morgan Reese was at the entrance.
Though he was nearly blinded by the glow of psychic power, Ben didn’t see Reese immediately. A pair of men entered the bar first, one black, one white, both large, blocking the sight of the smaller man. Reese was only a step behind, and when the two men moved aside to find a table for themselves, they seemed to take some of the energy with them. Ben frowned at this, but quickly forgot the mortals, concentrating on Reese as the magician came up to the table.
He gestured for Reese to have a seat.
Reese gave Ben a moment of stubborn resistance, then settled down on a cushion. “This place is stupid,” Reese announced. “If you’re going to keep forcing me to meet you, pick some place with chairs next time.”
“Fair enough.” Ben waved over a waitress, and waited for Reese to order before he pushed what he’d brought toward the magician. There was the faceted red stone the size of an egg, a gold chalice etched with strange symbols, and a blue three-ring binder. “Presents.”
Reese gave a sneering glance at the stone and the cup. “I can get these in the gift shop.”
Ben smiled. “Touch them, then tell me you can.”
Reese put a hand out, and a pulse of energy spread out in a hot wave from the ruby even before he touched it. Reese pulled his hand back.
Nearby, someone said, “Holy fucking shit!”
Ben chuckled, agreeing with the assessment of the unfortunate tourist who had enough talent to feel the power surge. “Real magic,” he whispered to Reese, leaning closer to the magician. “Real artifacts. Real tools.”
Shock, pleasure, greed all washed through Reese. He looked at Ben with shining eyes. “Implements for performing ritual magic. From the museum.” Ben nodded. “For me. You’re giving them to me.”
There was no surprise in his tone, and very little gratitude. Morgan Reese believed that he deserved everything, and Ben agreed with him. He would give Reese everything, because Reese belonged to him.
“Power is for taking,” Ben told Reese. “For using.”
Reese nodded, then he finally looked at the binder. “What’s in the book?”
Chapter 9
“WHERE ARE WE going?”
Geoff Sterling answered her question with one of his own. “Where do you want to go?”
“The Silk Road, of course. But . . .” Char looked around nervously.
She half expected the Enforcer of the City to step out of the shadows and demand to know what they were doing he
re. Overhead the stars didn’t have a chance of showing against all the light thrown up by the city. But a nearly full moon was out, shining down on the tower of the nearby Stratosphere. Heavy traffic moved in the street, though the sidewalk where they stood was relatively empty. Wedding chapels lined the street, lights and music and joy spilling out from many of them.
“Romantic place,” Sterling said. “Let’s get out of here. Why the Silk Road?” he asked as they began to walk.
Char wished she wasn’t wearing high-heeled shoes. Not that they hurt the tough skin of her feet—vampires didn’t get blisters—but she wasn’t used to walking in anything that tilted her legs and hips at such an awkward angle. It’d been a while since she’d done the girly girl thing. Jimmy Bluecorn liked her in spiked heels and short skirts, back in the ’80s when they went to a lot of Heavy Metal concerts. She missed the ’80s, but not the shoes.
“Why the Silk Road?” she replied to Sterling’s question. “To check out the casino, of course.”
Sterling took her hand in his as they walked, and for some reason, Char let him. “You don’t seem the gambling type.”
“To check out my investment, then.”
“You too, huh?”
“Well, no, actually.” She was, she knew, an inveterate truth teller. “I heard about the investment opportunity, but—”
“You don’t earn much on an Enforcer’s salary,” Sterling finished for her.
“If you were an Enforcer,” she informed him, “you would know that one does not actually get paid for serving and protecting the community.”
“Except in fresh corpses.”
Char looked around, though she didn’t really expect them to be overheard. “Yeah.”
“Go on,” he urged. “Tell me more about the Silk Road. Is that where you were trying to get last day?” he added. “Or were you just trying to fly into the sun?”
“Speaking of the sun,” she asked, “why are you wearing shades right now?”
“I’m from L.A.,” he answered. “Even worse, I’m from Hollywood.”
“That’s where you went, after you left Seattle?”
“Where’d you go?” he countered. “After you left Seattle?”
He hadn’t answered her question about the sunglasses, but she answered him. “Portland first. Now I live in Arizona.”
“And you’re in Las Vegas for the wedding. Only for the wedding?”
“And you’re in Las Vegas for what? The film exhibitors’ convention?” she said. “I remember hearing about that. Are you really in the movies?”
“Production,” he said. “My partner and I have done a couple of projects. You see If Truth Be Told? That’s one of ours.”
“I’ve seen it.” She hated to admit it, but like most vampires, she loved vampire movies. They were the ultimate guilty pleasure. It was rather delicious to think that a vampire had produced a vampire film. “It was a terrible movie,” she added.
“I know. Straight to video. It would have been great if Selim had let us use the original script. But no, he had to protect his ass.”
“You know Selim? The Enforcer of Los Angeles? Selim knows there’s a rogue Nighthawk in his city?”
Her shock made him laugh. “Girl, you are so cute.”
She suspected that by cute, he meant naïve. Fine. He could believe that if he wanted to. To pull her hand away from his would have been petulant.
“Selim takes good care of his city,” Sterling assured her. “If it makes you feel any better about me, I’ll admit that I did help him thin an overpopulation of strigs a while back. He knows all I want is to be left alone.”
Okay, she’d buy Sterling’s explanations for now, and check with Selim when she got back home. Sterling still had no business being an undeclared Nighthawk. She was very far from knowing what she should do about it. She wasn’t exactly the most action-oriented queen of the night.
“I do research,” she said. “That’s the real reason I want to go to the Silk Road.”
“Going to waltz in and ask to look in the vault?”
“Of course not!” She gave him a hard look. “You know about the vault? You’re interested in the old knowledge?”
“I’ve heard the rumors.”
“And what do you think of them?”
“That it all sounds too good to be true. I wonder who started the rumors. And why. We’re a secretive culture. It seems very unlikely that someone would store all our secrets in one place, and then a rumor of the storage place would start to circulate in the underground gossip mills. Sounds like a trap to me.”
“Me too,” she agreed. Too quickly. And she wished she’d bit her tongue before she said anything. Vampires were supposed to be secretive! It was a survival skill she’d yet to learn. “I also wonder why the Council allowed the owner to use the Silk Road theme.”
“Why do you think, Hunter?”
“Because the Council doesn’t get out much,” she suggested. “Besides, an exotic lost city theme certainly suits a Las Vegas hotel. And most of our kind don’t know about the city. Not that most strigoi would be interested, of course. Most of them have no interest in history. Most have no interest in magic other than knowing the spell to turn a companion.”
“Enforcers have encouraged this lack of interest, haven’t they?”
While his tone was not exactly accusatory, it was heavy on sarcasm. While she chose not to answer this, they reached a corner. Geoff turned them left and they crossed, cutting easily through the heavy traffic. Char reflected that she probably would have waited at the crosswalk for a green light even though she had no need for such mundanely mortal behavior.
“Maybe you hang with mortals too much,” Sterling observed.
She didn’t answer this comment, either, but she did ask, “You have a destination in mind?” when they reached the other side of the street.
“Yes.” They walked another block, then he paused.
Char was aware of his intensity, then of what he was searching for. “Vampires.”
“Not very far away. Come on.”
When he would have led her on, Char balked. “Why? You aren’t looking for a snack, are you?”
He laughed. “You get a mental sniff of that bunch? Carrion.”
“Light addicts,” she corrected. “It’s an illness. We should—”
“Feel sorry for them?”
“Avoid them,” she answered. “Honey, I’m not that politically correct.”
The grin he flashed at her held a hint of mating fang. “You called me honey.”
She jerked her hand from his. “Don’t take it personally.”
“Of course not,” he said. He started off down the street once more. “You coming?” he called back when she hesitated to follow.
She thought about finding Jebel. She thought about her longing to visit the Silk Road. She recalled that Geoff Sterling was an unregistered Nighthawk. She wasn’t yet sure what she needed to do about that, but letting him wander alone among the city’s population of neon junkies didn’t seem like the sort of thing a responsible Enforcer should do.
She caught up with him in a few steps. “What do you want with the junkies?”
He gave her a strange look. “Nothing.”
The next block held the blank wall of a huge parking garage. Traffic was thin for the moment, and the only illumination was from streetlights on each corner. The heat of the day still pulsed from concrete and blacktop, but the darkness between the corners was cool and comforting to creatures of their kind. She let Geoff Sterling take her hand again, and that was cool too, and the pulse beneath smooth, dense flesh was slow, slow and steady.
Within a few moments they turned the corner, going from darkness into glaring, garish light. Before them stretched several long blocks of a street that had been turned into a pedestrian mall. The lights of some of the city’s older casinos lit up both sides of the mall. A canopy of light and laser arched over the street, stretching for several blocks. Music blared from all around, the
lights changing and pulsing with the songs.
“Fremont Street,” he said, and she felt his pulse quicken.
“I’ve heard of it,” she answered. “This area is called the Fremont Street Experience. Or neon junkie heaven.”
The street was crowded with people, faces turned up to the lightshow. There were a lot of vampires in the crowd. Geoff Sterling walked into the crowd, bringing her with him, moving well up the street before coming to a stop.
He moved with solemn grace, like he was performing some sort of rite. Nervous energy that was close to fear radiated from him.
“Just remember that I saved your ass,” he told her. Then he looked up, and took off his sunglasses.
As he took them off, Char realized why he’d been wearing them. The light drew him, fascinated him, the way it did—
While Geoff turned his face to the moving, pulsing, beautiful lights, Char took a quick, hard look around. Even if she hadn’t been able to recognize the distinct energy pattern that said vampire, she would have known which ones they were. Skinny as sticks, it was hard to tell male from female. They took a lot of blood before heading out to watch the lights, so they weren’t as pale as normal strigoi. The blood made them high, made them more receptive to the thing that truly turned them on. Their age dragged on them, they wore it like heavy winter clothes, layer upon layer of years.
Sick, she thought. Totally sick. Senile. Vampire Alzheimer’s.
She shuddered at the thought that she could ever be like that. Then she grew aware of the man beside her. His body was stiff with tension, his face turned up to the lights.
She shook him. “You’re smiling,” she told him, pitching her voice to reach him beneath the Jimi Hendrix song rolling over the street. “Just like the mortals all around you are smiling. You’re not like them—the carrion.” He’d been right to call the light addicts that. “Don’t do this to yourself. You just like the lights. Geoff. Geoff!” She hit him on the shoulder. When a Nighthawk hits someone, even another Nighthawk, it has an effect.
Geoff jumped, shook himself, and looked away from the overhead lightshow, down at her. “What’d you do that for? I was enjoying—”
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