Aces Wilde: Immortal Vegas, Book 5 (22 page)

“Vigilance,” he said, without preamble.

He kept speaking then, but the word blasted through me with a strength that shook me to my toes. In a single heartbeat, my mind exploded with a dozen different images—places I’d been, people I’d known—things I’d seen. I’d heard that name before, seen the image. A picture, high on the wall of a domed throne room, an image of a woman holding the scales in one hand and a sword in the other. So very similar to the Tarot depiction of Justice, but undeniably more forceful. Instead of being seated with a placid demeanor, the woman of Vigilance rushed forward, her sword outstretched, the scales as much a weapon as the sword…

The sword.

“Sara, what is it?” Jerome’s voice broke in. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. They meant it as a compliment—a compliment!” He was back to chafing my hands, and I blinked at him, trying to regain my balance.

“It’s okay,” I managed. “It’s okay. I just—it took me by surprise. The name. I’ve heard it before, hunting items for the Council. It’s some sort of older goddess, maybe a precursor to the Tarot, I don’t know.”

He pursed his lips, then turned to walk again, distracted by this new question. “I’m not familiar with a mythology that incorporates that imagery with that name, but as you say, there are any number of esoteric societies that sprang up during the Renaissance and even before. That one of them would have taken on the depictions…”

I let Father Jerome’s words wash over me as I strode beside him, a thousand miles and several dimensions away. The denizens of Atlantis had reacted strongly to me when they’d seen me come storming out of the abandoned throne room, dagger and scales in my hands, my hair and eyes wild. They’d known me, recognized me, from a picture that had been painted thousands of years before Christ, etched into the stones of a lost civilization. Why were the children using that name to describe me now? Had they been given it by someone? Fed it by a scholar of the ancient city? Or were my gun and my perpetual state of darkness enough to bring the name to their minds organically? I grimaced. It could go either way.

Nigel stood on what was left of the front steps of the house when we circled back around. “Exactly the same configuration of device, remote detonation, not a timer. Someone knew to blow this second set at the same time the first set went off miles away.”

My adrenaline jacked, and I turned to Jerome. “You’re sure the other houses—”

“Not affected. I checked. We’re having bomb teams come in to be sure. And there is nothing damaged here other than what you see.” His lips turned down. “I suspect there is extensive damage to Mercault’s château, however. What was its location again, specifically?”

He asked this last as my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I jerked it free from my hoodie, hoping for another of Nikki’s rants. Instead, a different name flashed across the screen, and I smiled despite myself. One rant was as good as the next, I supposed. I hadn’t planned on being out of town this long.

I swiped the phone on, then held it to my ear. “Sara,” I said, bracing myself for Brody’s explosion.

There was nothing on the line for a moment. Then a familiar rasping feminine voice filled up my whole world.

“I’m afraid Detective Rooks took an untoward step today, Sara Wilde, investigating a property you have no claim to.”

I went stiff, only dimly aware that Nigel and Jerome kept walking. “Where is he?” I asked stupidly. “How do you have his phone?”

“It seems he’s not the only friend of yours convalescing in a hospital,” the voice continued. “You’re becoming dangerous company to keep.”

“If you hurt him…”

“The day you are a threat to me is a day I will relish,” Gamon scoffed. “But it is not today. Stay out of a war you cannot hope to win. Give up your sword. Let others do the fighting while you lurk in the shadows. I have spared the foolish children you seem so intent on saving. Believe me, I’ve kept the ones I’ve found who are truly useful. And those you snatched from me before I could find them—life is long. I can afford to be patient. You cannot, however. Your every associate is at risk, from the lowest to the highest reaches, unless you let things flow to the fullness of their—”

I clicked off the phone. With every word, I was getting more convinced that Gamon was insane, but insane was tricky to manage, and I was full up on my allotment of crazy for the day. Hitting speed dial, I reconnected with Nikki, who picked up on the first ring.

“You’re coming to get me,” she said.

“You’re still on a morphine drip.”

“I’ll take it to go. What’s up, dollface? Hit me.”

I filled her in on Brody, asking her to connect with anyone she could back home to find out what was happening to him—and to let the police know his phone had been swiped. Doubtless that meant Nikki would be contacting Dixie Quinn, Brody’s current girlfriend, but she was the least of my problems. Nothing like being responsible for all your friends landing in the hospital to give you some perspective on what mattered.

I rang off to find Nigel and Jerome back to staring at me. “Gamon blew something else up,” I said. “One of Soo’s properties in Vegas. I get the feeling it might not be confined to there.”

Nigel nodded, fishing his own phone out of his pocket. “I would’ve been advised if it was a widespread attack, but there may be more outlying events. We’ll track it.” With a curt nod, he moved off, leaving Jerome and me staring at each other again. With a start, I realized I hadn’t asked about Max.

“No one was hurt?” I pressed him. “Not Max either?”

“Max?” Jerome looked at me with a bewildered smile. “Sara, I thought you knew. He went on vacation immediately after you left—to visit family, he said. I’ve been working him diligently for weeks, and before today, things had been going so well with the children. He has more than earned a respite. I don’t expect him back for several more days.” He reached for my hand and pulled me toward the back of the house. “He’ll be fine, I suspect.”

I let Jerome take me to a quiet courtyard, accepted his French wine and soothing talk, but I knew in my heart that Max wasn’t relaxing somewhere with cousins in the south of France. He’d delivered me gift wrapped to Armaeus, and I’d fled within the half hour. But something had tipped Armaeus off to the changes going on inside me—both then and when he’d touched me in my dreams. And no one knew my abilities more clearly right now than Max Bertrand.

Which meant he could only be one place right now: spilling my every secret to Armaeus. Even those I didn’t know I had.

I waited until Jerome was called away by the police before I settled back in my chair. Everything hurt on my body, most especially my heart. Nikki was in the hospital—Brody as well, if Gamon were to be believed. Everywhere I turned, someone was insisting I give up Soo’s commission and relinquish control of the House of Swords.

But I also had an uptick in my Connected abilities that hadn’t been on my radar screen before now. The burst of power that I’d thrust out to keep Armaeus away, that I’d used to keep myself and Ma-Singh alive, that I’d distracted Mobo with long enough for Nikki to plant a bullet in his skull. My odd connection with the Honjo sword—something else I hadn’t been prepared for.

There was too much I didn’t know, too much I needed to know. I needed to be able to combat the darkness that seemed to be rushing ever closer to me, threatening my friends, my people…

A darkness I had no idea how to fight.

And in the entire world, I had only one person I could truly turn to, one infernal teacher more than willing to teach me—if only I asked for his help.

I was asking for it now.

The barriers to my mind were thicker than I remembered them, knotted snarls of defiance that took longer than I expected to loosen. But when the first knot finally gave, he was there. The way he was always there, his assured arrogance palpable despite the distance between us.

“Miss Wilde,”
Armaeus said into my mind, his voice dripping with condescension.
“For what you truly want, I need you here. Here and ready to do all that I ask, exactly as I ask. Unless and until you tap the power you need to survive, you will not win this battle. Once or evermore.”

Chapter Twenty

It took another full day before Nikki’s doctors consented for her to leave the hospital in Amboise, but I suspected that had more to do with the moony expression on the face of her head physician than any lingering complications of her injuries. She left with shopping bags full of French lingerie and a promise to return, sashaying out the front doors of the hospital in a jaw-dropping nurse costume that ended well north of her knees.

We kept the conversation light until we boarded the plane—this one sent by the Council, over Nigel’s protestations. But at this point, I wasn’t going to fool around with mortal protection schemes. The Council would get Nikki back to Vegas safely. What happened after that was a problem for a different day. And Nikki was taking full advantage of her pain medication, barely staying conscious until we strapped her into her seat.

We were cruising at twelve thousand feet when Nigel finally swung his chair to me. “You’ve avoided the question of your succession for too long. It will be waiting for you once we land.”

“There’s no real question,” I said, absently drawing my finger over the hilt of the Honjo Masamune. “I’ll go through the ceremony with whatever generals I need to convince, and one of them can fight over who wins. The houses, the money—I don’t care about that.” I pulled my hand away, resolutely ignoring the flare of heat along my fingertips. “The House needs someone who can run it—independently. And all the Houses need to feel secure. Not hiding in the shadows, afraid of the Council or Gamon or anyone else.”

Nigel unbuckled his seat belt and stood. From her captain’s chair, Nikki didn’t lift a lash. I envied her medicated state.

“Come on, then,” he said, extending a hand. “Your Council saw fit to give us an airplane wide enough to stage a rock concert. Let’s see how we can orchestrate your sword fight with the generals so you don’t do harm to yourself.”

“Nigel, you don’t need to practice with me.” Still, I got up a little too quickly. I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of the generals, for all that I knew I would lose.

“Have you ever fought seriously with the blade?” he asked, shucking his jacket. His compact frame bristled with muscles.

Despite Nikki’s drugged condition, I’d swear that she swiveled her seat slightly to get a better view.

“I try not to fight seriously, period.” I pulled off my hoodie and slid the Honjo Masamune out of its scabbard. The sword glinted in the artificial light, so heartbreakingly beautiful, it made my soul ache. “What are you going to use?”

“I brought a practice sword.” Nigel moved over to the side of the cabin and slid open a bin, unearthing a bundle of cloth. What he unwrapped was a sword surprisingly similar to mine in size and heft. “This is a Muramasa blade. It will cut you if I’m not careful. I get the impression that would not go over well with your employers, so I’ll endeavor to be careful.”

“Yeah, you’ll endeavor not to be embarrassed, anyway.” I held up the sword like a baseball bat, knowing it was wrong, but before Nigel could correct me, the sword dipped heavily in my grip, aligning itself to a more natural position.

Nigel lifted his brows. “Defend,” he said and moved in toward me, slashing his blade in a vicious arc.

My arms moved with a jolt of energy I couldn’t explain, thrusting up to meet his blade squarely so that his sword bounced back from mine. Nigel was taller than me, and stronger, but I met each of his attacks. Blocked every thrust. My arms and hands and core and legs moved in concert as if born to the art of sword fighting, and I shifted in perfect symmetry to combat the British operative, strike for strike.

At length, he directed me to attack, and I was more tentative. The blade never got close to nicking Nigel’s skin or presenting him with a serious threat, even when he urged me to strike more actively. Time after time, I feinted away, artfully moving around him rather than cause him real danger.

“What are you doing?” he growled at length, and I held the blade up, pacing evenly to match his steps.

“Nigel, you’re hysterical if you’re thinking I’m doing any of this at all. The sword is not your enemy; therefore, I am not your enemy.”

As soon as I spoke those words, I stopped, frozen in place. Nigel stopped as well. He straightened, and I followed his lead, lowering the Honjo Masamune. When he bowed, it was the most natural thing in the world for me to bow as well. We had come to an understanding, he and I. And an understanding of the sword I held.

“The honorable blade,” he said, his eyes wide with surprise. Across the cabin, a now fully alert Nikki was leaning forward in her seat.

“Meaning what, exactly?” she barked. “It’s a sword that won’t cut anyone? Because news flash, that’s not a super useful attribute when you’re in the middle of a sword fight.”

I held the blade out in front of me, and it gleamed in the soft cabin light, the dance of stones embedded in the base of the sword evoking the brilliance of the night sky. “It strikes down its enemy cleanly, or it doesn’t kill at all,” I said. “I read that somewhere. A samurai was attacked by a man wielding this blade. It cleaved his helmet in two—but didn’t harm a hair on his head. The samurai eventually bested the guy who attacked him and took the sword. I thought that was weird at the time but didn’t realize…” I shook my head. “I don’t know how successful it was after that. I still can’t believe its owners simply gave it away to some random American guy.”

“Well, that’s the story that was put out, certainly,” Nigel said. He watched me as I moved the sword back and forth in the light. “But who’s to know the truth? Perhaps the family who owned the sword wanted it kept far out of allied hands, while appearing to be following the path of the righteous. I wouldn’t have thought to look for the blade in Angkor Wat, and I doubt many American servicemen were that familiar with the spot in the nineteen forties. It could have all been an elaborate ruse.”

“I guess.” I slid the sword back in its scabbard and rested my hand lightly on it. “Who among Soo’s generals are Connected, do you know?”