by Jenn Stark
I nodded, considering that as I looked up at the soaring casino. “I always did like coasters.”
True to Nikki’s word, the Stratosphere boasted a unique crowd for a Wednesday night, at least for those with eyes to see. There was the usual group of tourists, spilling out into the bar area, screaming their heads off on the rides and generally falling somewhere on the continuum between happily drunk and colossally hungover. But there were also several knots of patrons who boasted a decidedly higher psychic resonance, drinking in groups, playing cards, noshing.
Networking happy hour for sorcerers.
Nikki went to get us drinks, and I leaned against an open spot at a high table, watching the city as the night crept down and the lights came up. The Stratosphere really did have a top-shelf view. Never mind the gleaming neon of the actual Strip—Paris and the Luxor, the Bellagio and the Wynn Casino, Treasure Island and Caesars. To the eye of a Connected, it was what loomed over the Strip that provided the real show.
And these days, the Council’s real estate was getting downright crowded.
First up was the gleaming white tower over Treasure Island, serving as an unofficial gate to the Strip, a silent monolith of power. Then there was the thick, ungainly castle keep above Caesars Palace. Neither one of these two edifices was occupied. I didn’t know if they were model homes or simply there for balance. Farther up the Strip, however, over Paris, sat the Emperor’s domain, a black monolith that gleamed with masculine force, arcs of electricity crackling along its top. Unlike the owners of the white tower or castle keep, the Emperor was definitely home and entertaining callers.
Forcing my mind sharply away from Viktor lest he sense my attention, I focused on the Bellagio, with its glittering Foolscap tower of glass and lights. The Fool of the Arcana Council had recently taken up residence there, but I got the feeling Simon didn’t spend a lot of time in its cockeyed heights. He was happier hunched over his computer than having cocktails in a fortress of glass.
Opposite the Bellagio lay Scandal, one of the few named Council homes. The glass structure that soared above the Flamingo vibrated with sound and the constantly changing video display, currently featuring a surge of flames and laser beams in competing shades of violet and orange. The Devil’s domain never slept. I was beginning to think he didn’t either.
And finally, at the far end of the Strip, lay Prime Luxe, the Magician’s domain. Although the Magician was definitely not in residence, the place was lit up like a Christmas tree, a glittering fortress of glass and steel complete with fairy-tale turrets, gravity-defying parapets, and more square footage than any one Council member could possibly need. Which was why it housed two. Out of everyone I’d met so far on the Council, only the High Priestess didn’t have her own digs, as Eshe preferred to mooch off Armaeus. Three thousand years of entitlement couldn’t be denied.
“Here you go, sweetniks. Try to act like you’re having fun.”
I took the mojito Nikki held out, eyeing her over the glass. “I am having fun.”
“Then remind me not to be around you when you’re depressed. Cheers.” She tossed back her drink and set down her glass, then headed for our targets, a small group of cigar-smoking cronies tucked into a corner of the outdoor bar.
She sashayed across the deck in her gladiator sandals, and I trotted along beside her, trying to mimic her style and failing dramatically. My natural introversion had me slowing down, scrambling for something to say, even as we reached our destination.
As usual, I needn’t have worried.
“You’re Spinners,” Nikki said, dropping into a chair and leaning in with her characteristic subtlety. “Any of you know about entering Hell? ’Cuz we’re about to go and would appreciate the—”
“Don’t say it,” I muttered.
“Down low.” Nikki grinned as one of the men edged forward, puffing on his cigar. None of the group wore robes, which was totally undermining my opinion of dark mages. Next they wouldn’t have souped-up lightsabers either. What was the point of being a dark mage?
“Which of you is going?” he asked. “Both is foolish.” His gaze slid to me. “You, I think. I know you.”
“Her face was on a lot of milk cartons. Ancient history.” Nikki rested her elbows on her knees. “What should we expect from the other side?”
The men and lone woman stared back at us for a long minute. I focused on the woman, but she was watching Nikki, not me. As we all eyeballed each other, I could sense the battering of their psychic tendrils against my brain. They were probing, pushing, testing, all while looking like they might meet up later for a canasta tournament. These were no comparison to the kind of attacks I’d endured from the Council, but my brain wasn’t the only one in this conversation.
As I frowned at Nikki, one of the men shrugged. “Information is money,” he said mildly.
“Money or services rendered, yes, it is. But first give us something worth paying for, then we’ll negotiate. What do we need to know the first thirty seconds we step foot in that dimension?”
“The first thirty seconds are your last thirty seconds.” The woman’s voice was as hard as her appearance, and it cut across the group with a strange mix of suppression and goading. “It’s all the same in Hell.”
“So a temporal displacement?” I frowned. This was exactly the kind of information I needed.
“More like a vortex,” she said. “Time bending back on itself. You step in and a century could pass, or a moment. You lose track, but it doesn’t matter. As long as your tether remains waiting for you,” she flicked her glance to Nikki, “she holds the hourglass.”
“It’s a building filled with endless rooms, as many have said but none have proven.” Another man sighed. “Each more fantastic than the last. Everything you ever wanted, everything you imagined might come true but didn’t… It’s there. All the wrong decisions and missed opportunities too.”
Dread made up a nice futon in my stomach, preparing for a long stay, but Nikki waved the guy off. “You don’t need to scare us, friend. We’re already full up on that.” She peered around the group. “What’ll it take for legit intel?”
“Some in return.” The hard-faced woman took out a metal case and a tool and snipped the end off her cigar into the ashtray. She then neatly slid the cigar out of sight. “Why are you attempting to breach the doors of Hell?”
Nikki slid me a glance, and I nodded. I didn’t mind Nikki airing my laundry. Soo had already hung me out to dry.
Nikki apparently agreed. “Annika Soo hired my friend to find a bauble she believes was stuck in Hell a generation ago. Soo pays well but knows little.”
That got a snort of appreciation around the table.
The woman didn’t laugh. “What does she want with this bauble? The woman is richer than God as it is.”
“Power.” Another man was leaning in now, his eyes on me, the touch of his mind against mine annoyingly persistent. “She’s arming herself. Which means despite what you say, she knows something we don’t.”
I held up my hands, keeping a tight clamp on my brain, feeling like a fat little guppy surrounded by sharks with bad dentures. “I don’t know what she plans to do with it. She doesn’t pay me to ask that kind of question.”
“She’s not your only client either.” The woman leaned back, her arms crossed. “The Arcana Council is allowing this. They must need you in Hell as well.”
“Nope,” I said with words that rang with absolute authenticity. Kreios wasn’t paying me. Which meant his assignment wasn’t a job. “I’m in and out on Soo’s dime, as fast as possible.
“Perhaps we’ll hire you as well, then.”
It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen that one coming. Add-ons weren’t unheard of in the world of arcane bounty hunting. But the rules were clear.
“You want something and I can get it, I will. For a fee,” I said. “My loyalty is to Soo, though. That’s the way this works.”
They nodded. “When do you leave?” the woman asked.
I grimaced. I still needed to get the key out of the precinct house. “Tomorrow, the next day. Soon.”
“You’ll have your commission before sunrise. We need time to discuss.”
“Well, whatever you want, I need to be able to carry it with one hand, on the run if need be. Otherwise, no deal.”
She inclined her head. “Agreed. In payment, you may ask your questions about Hell.” She noted my hardening jaw. “If the additional compensation we offer when we decide upon the artifact is not satisfactory, we can negotiate an equitable price.”
“Fine.” Arrangements finalized, I didn’t waste any time. “You said a house full of rooms. Is it all indoors?”
“No,” the older man spoke. “It has open spaces as well, empty vistas if that is what you conjure for yourself. It’s a house of the mind as much as anything, and the mind is a dangerous place.”
“What sort of security is there? Any demon armies I need to know about? Three-headed dogs?”
The woman managed a grudging smile. “Nothing like that in the upper realms. The lower realms have a demon host or angelic host, depending on your viewpoint. You shouldn’t run into those.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
“Because you’re searching for artifacts placed in Hell by human hands. There’s only so far a living soul can go into Hell. To go farther, you need to either be dead or be granted immortality from within.” The man’s eyes had taken on a strange fervency. “The ultimate gift of the masters.”
Okeydokey. It occurred to me that getting travel advice from crazy people was perhaps not my best bet. “Why is it so hard to get out?”
“You won’t want to leave.” The woman again. “The exits are not hidden if your eyes are clear and your mind focused. If you allow yourself to become clouded with that which appears to be real, however, you will lose your way.”
“Eh, that sounds easy enough to remember,” I said. “What am I missing? Why hasn’t anyone returned?” At their blank stares, I rolled my eyes. “You seriously mean to tell me that all I have to do is stay focused and I’m good?” Kreios had said much the same thing, but I refused to believe it. “Okay, what else do I need to know?”
They talked on then, but their answers had a clear pattern. Hell was deceptive and filled with misdirections. Hell was dangerous but not in any specific way. Hell required you to stay focused and solid or it would get the best of you. Like the ocean, it seemed, a mortal could fool Hell many times. But Hell only had to fool you once.
Either way, I felt better, and if the Spinners ended up paying me to pick up something in Hell when I was already down there, then all the better.
Eventually the cigars smoked down and the talk drifted to less interesting topics, allowing us to exit smoothly. With a promise to contact us by sunrise, the dark mages let us go.
“That wasn’t as bad as I expected,” I murmured as Nikki steered me through the crowd. It was thick enough that tourists were cheek to jowl, and she simply grunted in response until we got into the elevator. Then the universal Law of Elevator Silence was invoked, and we didn’t breathe easy until we exited into the cool desert night.
“It went about how I thought it would.” Nikki shrugged. “A little too easy, but we got ’em talking. We’ll see what happens tomorrow. Accept whatever they offer, then plan on renegotiating. I don’t trust those guys.” She reached into her bra and pulled out her phone, flicking it on. “Now we just need a date with Detective Delish.”
Chapter Six
Detective Brody Rooks and I went back a long way, since my teen years playing find-the-missing-person for the Memphis Police Department ten years earlier. Our tag-team adventure had ended badly when my foster mother had been killed and I’d gone on the run, but recent events had pulled us back into each other’s orbit.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Brody’s orbit, but right now I needed him. I could afford to play nice. “Tell him to pick us up,” I said. “I don’t feel like walking all the way to the station.”
“Already on it,” Nikki said as we exited the Stratosphere. She jabbed out a text while I eyed the distant lights of the SLS Casino and the shadows in between. At this hour, the shadows outnumbered the working street lamps by a margin of five to one. “He’s not happy,” she said after a minute, “but he’s coming.”
Her phone rang and she grimaced. “Give me a sec.”
I retreated into the shadows, and Nikki strode forward, talking low and quick. Whoever it was on the phone didn’t seem to be a friend. I frowned. Who was she—
“You shouldn’t trust them, you know.”
I went rigid as the shadow beside me fluttered, the dark rasp of a voice as real and present as the knife against my neck. The chuckle accompanying my bracing body was soft as well. “No need to fight me, Sara Wilde. If I’d wanted you dead, you’d already be lying on the pavement.”
“Yeah, you and whose army?” I shot back. Because hey, I could throw pointless insults as well as anyone.
“You cannot trust the dark mages, low-level as they may be here. Nor the Council, but I suspect you already know that. You’re a pawn in a much larger game. Start making your own decisions, and you’ll see. It won’t go well for you.”
“Right.” I didn’t look to the side as a dark sedan drove up, causing Nikki to end her call, then turn and lean into the window, her mile-long legs on ample display.
“The detective in that car is going to give you enough to keep busy for a while—busy and in Las Vegas. Despite what Soo is paying you, I suggest you don’t go seeking out trouble when there’s enough of it already on your doorstep…and so much more to come.”
I grimaced. My trip to Hell must have been covered by CNN. “Look, I appreciate the warning for all that I’m not going to listen to it, but—”
I pivoted toward the shadow, knowing I was talking to dead air. The man had gone—disappeared. I squinted down the street, then up the wall, and caught a glimpse of a body scrambling over the roofline. Not enough to say definitively that it was my new best friend, or whatever he was, but enough that I thought so.
“Yo, dollface! Get over here. He wants a threesome.” I blinked as I refocused on Nikki, and realized she was waving her hand toward me. The few pedestrians on the street slowed as well, their eyes bugging wide as their phone cameras focused.
“Oh, Jesus.” I heard Brody’s irritated growl and the slap of his hand against the console. Instantly, his car lit up like a disco ball, and people scattered, roaches fleeing from the light. “You happy now?” he snapped. “Get in.”
Nikki grinned at me as I reached her, then opened the door. “We’re going to the police station! I’m so glad I did my nails.”
Unable to stifle my grin, I slid into the back of Brody’s sedan, Nikki right behind me.
Brody pulled back out into traffic, but he kept his gaze pinned to the rearview mirror, staring a little too curiously at me. “When did you get back in town?”
“Earlier today.”
“And you didn’t think to contact me?
“You’re not my mom.”
“We had an arrangement, Sara, remember? Things happen in the community, you’re supposed to tell me?”
I exchanged a glance with Nikki. She looked as surprised as I was. “Um…did something happen in the community?”
“Why else would you want to come to the station? And don’t tell me it’s because of that bullshit Nikki was trying to spin. You don’t give a shit about the evidence from the Rarity Show. That’s old news.”
“Well…maybe it could help with whatever is going on, actually.”
Brody snorted. “That’d not exactly match up with the kind of luck I’ve been having, sorry to say.” He stared at me again. “You really have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“I—”
Brody cut me off. “Last week’s search and rescue has yielded some unexpected complications,” he said. “I got cops all over the country with missing-kid cold cases emailing me. I got parents o
f said missing kids calling me night and day. And the case I caught today…”
He shook his head as his phone buzzed, and took the call, biting off terse commands as he navigated the streets of Vegas to the police station. Throwing the car in Park, he cut the engine and exited, still on the phone. Nikki and I piled out after him, following dutifully all the way into the building, down the hall, and into the evidence room. The sleepy-eyed attendant frowned at Brody as he finally clicked off his phone, but the detective’s snarl was convincing enough as he bit off the case number that apparently was attached to the Gold Show. “Specific item?” Brody snapped at me.
“Gold key, fancy. Baroque era most likely, about as long as my hand.” The hand that even now was slung into my hoodie pocket, palming Soo’s fake key.
The attendant nodded, then vanished through the storage room door. “Eyes only,” Brody ordered as his phone pinged again.
I winced, then gave him my most innocent look. “I will, um, need to touch it,” I said, glancing at the door where the attendant had disappeared. “Just to, you know.”
“Oh for Chrissakes.” Brody rolled his eyes. “You cannot steal it, Sara.”
“I won’t! Jeez!”
The evidence clerk, now looking much more harried, emerged from the back with a baggie in a bin and slid them through the slot. I took them as Nikki leaned forward on the man’s ledge. “Honey, where did you get those horn-rims?” she cooed as I slid the bin along the table, eyeing the key. It was exactly as Soo had shown me, and as Brody watched, glowering, I slid it out of its baggie.
Brody’s phone jangled again as I touched the artifact.
The shock of connection lifted me off my toes, every hair on my skin standing straight up. I shook my head hard as Brody swung back to me. I tucked the fake key into the baggie and offered him a smile as I pocketed the real McCoy.
“Well?” he growled.
“False alarm,” I said, my tongue feeling singed. “Not Connected.” My gaze dropped from his face to his phone…and I froze. “What is that?”