by Stark, Jenn
Sariah narrowed her eyes at me. “You might as well come right out and ask it. It’s written all over your face,” she said, twisting in her own chair as a glass of scotch was set down in front of her. I blinked in surprise at the drink. I didn’t really know what Sariah favored on a regular basis, but today, it was almost as if she was going out of her way to be my doppelgänger. Instead of her usual somewhat goth attire—she favored a lot of black, a lot of leather, and a lot of silver jewelry—today she wore a slightly dressier version of my usual hoodie, the sleek black satin material somehow managing to work with her jet-black jeans and dark leather boots. She had on a slinky silver tank top and no jewelry except for a shot of silver at each of her ears. Her hair was styled back in a low ponytail, and I suddenly found myself wishing that I wasn’t the one in the glitter-ball dress. I didn’t know what to say exactly, because the questions crowding my mind were all completely inappropriate—first and foremost, why are you dressed like me if you’re out on a date with Brody?
Instead, I managed something equally awkward. Because I have a gift.
“So have you guys been dating long? And since when, exactly?”
Sariah grinned as Brody choked on his beer.
“Well, you could just cut right to the chase,” he muttered, but Sariah leaned forward, apparently happy to field the question. “Very recently, and we’re doing quite well, thank you. We’re not even gonna be staying forever at this place, but we wanted to put in an appearance to support Nikki. Then there’s the fact that she said you were going to wear a dress, which, frankly, I had to see. And maybe make fun of you a little bit.”
Despite myself, I reached out and touched the edge of her slinky jacket. “I don’t suppose you’d mind switching clothes?”
“I think I should be offended,” the Devil protested. “I happen to think you’re extremely well-dressed for your position at this gathering. And given that the detective and Ms. Pelter plan on leaving this establishment on a motorcycle, she should be commended as well. You, however, have certain standards to uphold.”
I frowned at him. “I do?”
“You’re here as the special guest of the emcee of events, and there’s the small matter of your official date for this evening, a former head of the Arcana Council, who rarely gets to see you in a dress.”
“Yes, but he’s not here. He’s up there helping her, and—”
“Trust me, I see you.”
The words sounded in my mind, but it was the sudden hushed expression of wonder that slid across the audience that clued me in that the Magician was somewhere close. As Kreios chuckled and turned to the front of the room, I did the same.
Armaeus stood by Nikki’s side, resplendent in a custom black tuxedo with long tails, his perfectly tied cravat adding an air of Old World grace to the ensemble. And he’d come to the party with favors as well. A gentle glow surrounded him and Nikki, then shot out to the left and right to illuminate torches ringing the center stage.
To the casual observer, it looked like an impressive act of pyrotechnics, but I knew differently. This was pure Armaeus, putting on a show to make Nikki look good. He succeeded too. Nikki began the introductions of the night’s event, and with the arrival of each new contestant on the stage, dressed to kill in stunning evening wear, the special effects continued. Birds fluttered, fire danced, butterflies swarmed, and starry lights flickered throughout the room, depending on the theme of each of the new contestants.
“Why are they starting out with evening wear?” Brody asked, taking another pull on his beer. “Isn’t that the final category?”
“Not at this competition,” the Devil explained. “Evening wear is where this party gets started. The contestants will cycle through to athletic and casual wear, then finish the night with ballroom formals. If you think their dresses now are something to see, you’ll need to stick around for that.”
To my surprise, Sariah reached out and laid a hand on Brody’s forearm. He jumped as well, which also intrigued me. “I suspect we may be on our way by then,” she said, her voice low and a little dangerous. “See what trouble we can get into.”
Okay…
At that moment, the prerecorded packages for each of the contestants kicked in, and sound filled the space. Sound and increasing levels of applause as each new contestant was able to share a little bit more about the circumstances that brought them to the stage this night.
While that went on, a blushing, dazzling Nikki was escorted off the stage by Armaeus and returned to us.
“Please tell me you have booze,” she declared when she reached our table and slid into the chair opposite me. Armaeus took the seat next to her, his eyes glittering as he regarded me. We all leaned forward, and for the next five minutes, Nikki chattered as happily as I had ever seen her, regaling us with every detail of the event, every new surprise that the Magician had been able to conjure—quite literally—on her behalf. When she paused to take a breath, Sariah leaned forward.
“So we’re headed out probably between athletic wear and the gala categories,” Sariah said, her voice carrying a slight edge. “You guys got any good recommendations of where we should go?”
“On the Strip or off it?” Nikki asked immediately, but Brody raised his hands.
“Yo, I’m not in the mood to have my every action recorded for Las Vegas’s finest, thanks. I was thinking we could hit the road, head out of town a ways.” He shrugged, suddenly looking embarrassed. “Something.”
Sariah grinned at him, then slanted a glance back to me. “Wasn’t there a new casino up on the lake near Henderson?” she asked. “You’ve been up there, right?”
The Devil leaned forward a fraction, focusing on her face, but I frowned. “Yeah, there was a case last—whatever, it doesn’t matter. But why go out of your way just to hit a casino?” I asked. “You’ve got like a billion of them within a five-minute drive.”
Sariah snorted, but I could see her mind was made up. They were headed out of town—somewhere. Anywhere. And maybe that was for the best. She deserved to feel the wind in her hair. She, more than most, deserved to be free.
Either way, within a few short minutes, I found myself once more tucked between the Devil and the Magician. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.
“An apt description, I would agree.” The Devil smiled.
I rolled my eyes. It was going to be a long night.
6
The pageant was an unqualified success. To my surprise, a remarkable number of tourists had joined the audience and now jammed the tables, surprised and delighted with each new performance. The winner received her trophy, local modeling contract, and cash prize shortly before midnight, while wearing an extravagant gown of feathers lifted by an unseen breeze, a true angel walking amid the crowd. So overcome with her success, she belted out an a capella version of Hallelujah that brought the house down.
Kreios disappeared sometime during the final act to address issues only the Devil could be bothered with at midnight in Las Vegas, which left me alone with Armaeus, basking in the reflected joy of Nikki on stage.
“If it were any other person, I would say she’s wasted in her supporting role with the Council,” he said, his dark eyes tracking her across the stage. “But I couldn’t imagine life without her.”
I glanced at him, surprised to hear him echo my own unformed thoughts. My heart tugged a little, and he turned toward me, a gentle smile softening his lips. “You could say arguably that I’ve known Nikki Dawes longer than I’ve known you, even before my memories of you were taken from me. She’s one of the reasons the fight to keep humanity protected from the Shadow Court weighs so heavily on my heart. She’s a masterpiece.”
“She’s certainly that,” I agreed. He reached for my hand, then stood and drew me away from the table. “I understand you need to return to Justice Hall. It’s a fine night for a walk.”
I stopped short of agreeing with him on that score, but I didn’t mind the walk. My nerves were windin
g tighter and tighter, and I didn’t know why. A walk would relax me—and refocus me too.
We exited into the cool desert night, the Strip lit up for our pleasure, the rush of crowds and traffic and noise a soothing balm. As we hit the pavement, Armaeus’s grasp on my hand grew tighter, and he tucked me up close beside him, as if he didn’t want even the slightest whisper of separation between us.
“The Devil chose well in your attire tonight, Miss Wilde, but you should know there’s never once been a moment when I’ve looked at you and not been utterly destroyed by your beauty, your power, and your truth. Decorate the window however it pleases you, I wish only that I should be allowed a glimpse inside.”
“Ah…what?” The statement was so unexpected and fraught with emotion that I blinked rapidly, glancing sharply up to search Armaeus’s face. “Is something wrong? Did something happen?”
The Magician smiled—a little grimly, I thought—but he didn’t meet my gaze. “We are so quick to assume the worst, aren’t we? But no, or should I say, nothing more than what we already know. There is a pressure building. I can feel it in my bones. I can sense it in the air around us. The battle presses down, eager to be begun.”
My heart tugged again, this time with fear. That didn’t sound good, but it was exactly the same thing I was feeling. An apprehension— almost anxiety. Like a bullet had just been snapped into a chamber, only I didn’t know where the gun was. “What kind of battle?” I asked warily.
“You asked what messages had come in through Justice Hall. I had the opportunity to query Nikki on the matter during our time together tonight.”
Something about his voice made me quirk my brow. “Query?” I asked skeptically.
His soft laugh was whisked away on the shifting breeze. “Perhaps query is a looser interpretation than some might give it. But her thoughts were clear on the matter. The cries of the Connected are growing. Not just those involved in the demonstration in Pompeii. There are agents of the Shadow Court appearing throughout the world, identifiable only insofar as they are ghosts. They appear long enough to be remembered as a stranger in the midst of the communities they damage, then vanish just as quickly. Wherever they walk, destruction follows. Not always death, though certainly there’s that, but fires set to homes, communities plagued with sickness. An instability is growing in the Connected world, and with it, fear. Worry. Panic. The pattern of disruption is so exquisitely woven as to seem almost random, but it’s not. It’s more like a spider’s web that has been strung round and round, built from the outside in.
“Then we should torch that net,” I said, my voice harder than I intended.
“It’s perhaps not quite as easy as that,” he countered. “Where there is fire, there is smoke and light. We will be seen. That is the nature of the trap the Shadow Court is setting, I suspect.”
I understood in a flash what he meant. The Shadow Court was upping its game by striking hidden-away communities of Connected where no one was looking. Even if we had the best of intentions, if we were to go after them, rout them, we would be noticed. A violent accident in the heart of New York City might be something easily missed, but a conflagration on the open plains would be noticed for miles around.
Who was actually behind the Shadow Court? How had they managed to operate in secrecy for so long? They’d have to have powers almost equal to the Council’s…but how could they, without the Council knowing about it?
I mulled over Armaeus’s words as we continued up the Strip, passing through a sea of freshly updated casinos until we reached the mainstays that anchored the north end: Treasure Island, the Venetian, and the Palazzo. Only then did I glance up to see what so few of the travelers in the city ever could. The shadow residences that soared above the flashy casinos, viewable only by the strongest of Connected. The huge white tower over Treasure Island had been my first introduction to the Arcana Council when I first arrived in Las Vegas. It now was home to the Hierophant, the Archangel Michael—his very own ivory tower. As I turned and scanned back down the Strip, I could see the other domains as well. The glittering peaks of Simon’s home above the Bellagio, the swirling lava-lamp skyscraper that the Devil called his home above the Flamingo. Even the black monolithic tower of the Emperor that shot sky-high above the Paris casino.
And then far at the end, the fairy-tale home of the Hermit, a tiny cabin perched atop a slender column, floating in the sky above Excalibur. It was dwarfed by the immense edifice behind it, Prime Luxe, the Magician’s stronghold. A million turrets of glass, stone, and steel, each time grander than the last I’d looked at it. Now it flared brightly under my scrutiny, and I slid Armaeus a glance. “Have you done some remodeling?”
He lifted a brow. “Do you know how rare it is for me to get the High Priestess to leave Prime Luxe?”
I burst out laughing and turned back toward the Palazzo, where my own residence stretched high above the penthouse apartments I held there. Justice Hall. All marble archways and long columns, like its cartoon counterpart, because I really hadn’t had the time or energy to care how it appeared to anyone else. I didn’t know when I would.
Armaeus took my hand and drew it to his mouth, brushing a soft kiss across the fingertips. Once again, I couldn’t shake the almost melancholy air to the gesture.
“You okay?” I asked, peering at him.
He didn’t meet my gaze exactly, lifting his eyes instead to the wonder of the Strip. “I feel that we need another lifetime to learn all there is to know about each other to my satisfaction,” he murmured, almost as if he were talking to himself. “I worry we will not be given that lifetime.”
Another sliver of doubt twisted through me.
“You know, worry is kind of a strong word coming from you. Just FYI,” I informed him, but Armaeus didn’t respond to that. Instead, he walked with me up the stairs to the entrance of the Palazzo, nodding at the doorman, who straightened immediately. A definite flash of recognition flared across the man’s face, and I thought about that too. Everyone knew Armaeus in this place. I suppose they knew me as well, but as what, exactly? Who was I to them? Someone with power, ability? Could they sense that? Or was I simply another eccentric resident, the crazy lady in the penthouse?
“You feel it, too,” Armaeus said as we moved past the elegant registration area and toward the glittering casino. “A building pressure. It will grow stronger yet as you review the requests for assistance that have come into Justice Hall, or that is what Nikki believes. Consider carefully what you decide to do.”
I squinted at him. “Don’t you mean what we all decide to do? As the Council?”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken, once more glancing away. “Or perhaps better stated, what you and I do together. Yes, yes, certainly that.” He sighed. “I have much still to learn of the challenges that await us. Much I need to study.”
We turned toward the elevators that led to Justice Hall. “No, seriously,” I said again, reaching out to punch the button to take me to the top floor of the casino. “Don’t you mean the Council as a whole?”
There was no response beside me, and I glanced back. Armaeus was gone.
“Goddammit,” I muttered. “I hate when you do that.”
“I am never truly far from you, Miss Wilde,” Armaeus murmured in my mind. “Know that above all other things.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I sighed as I stepped into the elevator. The doors slid shut, and I could no longer feel the Magician’s presence in my mind. So much for him never being far away.
“What is this thing lined with, kryptonite?” I muttered as the elevator whisked me upward. There was no one waiting for me on the top floor, and I picked up the thick silver cloth of my dress with some irritation, the garment seeming way too heavy all of a sudden. I moved down the hallway, aiming for the door at the far end of the corridor, the entryway to Justice Hall.
I’d only gotten a few feet down the hallway when a door far up and to the right opened. A well-dressed man and woman stepped out, quiet money oozing
from their pores. I slowed my pace, my nerves pricking to full alert. I had never asked for the top floor of the Palazzo to remain empty. It had just always worked out that way. But who were these people? Why were they here? They were heading directly toward me, then looked up as if surprised they weren’t alone in the corridor. Then they stopped cold at the sight of me, the man clapping his hands together in apparent relief.
“Justice Wilde,” he said, his voice sounding familiar, but too high, too excited. The woman beside him went pale with what seemed to be shock.
“Ahh…” I said helpfully.
“Justice Wilde,” the man said again, his words picking up speed. Now he was practically wringing his hands. “You must help us. I never thought—I couldn’t have dreamed to be able to see you in person, but we are being overrun. Our people are dying, slaughtered at the hands of the Shadow Court. You must help us.”
“Who are you?” I countered, trying to place him. “Who’s hurting you? Have you been to see Mrs.—”
I gestured farther up the corridor, then glanced back to the couple, and that was when I saw it. The man’s eyes suddenly turned black and then red, the woman’s beside him as well. They weren’t human, not even Possessed humans. They were demons. And they were blocking my way to Justice Hall.
This time, I didn’t screw around.
“Warrick!” I shouted, as my hands went wide, and the human face stretched into a horrible grimace as the demon impersonating the man realized the game was up. A second later, four other doors along the corridor flew open, and a dozen creatures rushed out, each more hideous than the last—these weren’t Possessed, these were full-on demons. Long, scaly arms that ended in paws tipped with bloody talons, pale skin covered in lesions, animalistic faces that I would never be able to unsee.