Aces Wilde: Immortal Vegas, Book 5 (32 page)

“I will,” she murmured, and I nodded. Jiao knew all there was to know about the House’s operation, and she would serve Soo’s legacy well. I had different battles to fight.

But here again, not the traditional ones.

“General Ma-Singh.” I turned to him and held out the Honjo Masamune, smiling to ease the incredible disappointment in his face. “There are swords that are meant for ceremonies and those meant for war. The Honjo is most at home in the hands of a true warrior. I will not damage your ranks by fighting with a blade among you. For that, I call upon the elite generals and their warriors. I choose you to fight as the head of that branch, if you would be willing.”

He stared at me, unspeaking for a long moment. “You will not fight for the House,” he rumbled, as close to a rebuke as he could manage in such a formal setting.

I shook my head. “I will not fight with a sword of steel and bone, no,” I said. “That doesn’t mean I will not fight. And it doesn’t mean I won’t lead you.”

I lifted the Honjo Masamune higher, until he reluctantly stepped forward. Then, drawing on Armaeus’s pool of dark magic, I sent a crackle of energy along the blade, setting it alight. The entire assembly froze, arrested by the vision.

I looked around the room. “You who have served Soo so long and so well, among you is the future of this House. Your hearts and minds will be tested in the coming battle. To win that battle, we much each do what we do best. Even me.”

I lifted my left hand and drew upon the magic that still roiled within me just beneath the surface. This power wasn’t mine, truly, but I would draw upon it for this gesture to solidify the House of Swords. Even endless darkness could be used for good…if only for a short while.

A set of crystal blades formed above my fingers. They spun as the generals stiffened, their eyes fixed on the illusion. The blades grew, dipped and lengthened, until a matrix of spinning swords twisted around me. With another flick of my hand, the swords plunged into the ground around our company, twelve black blades with silver hilts. I bowed to the generals’ startled stares. “Take all the blades but one, and assign them to your most trusted people, a symbol of what’s to come,” I said. “We begin to build the army of the House of Swords this day.”

I pulled the nearest sword and held it out before me, inspecting the long sliver of white that curled down the black metal weapon, glinting with power. It was so much cooler than what I’d imagined in my mind. Infinitely more badass. I couldn’t believe I’d created it at all, but then—the Magician’s dark magic was still coursing through me. Of course I could create something so epically beautiful, with power like that.

I nodded, clearing my mind once more. “There’s only one thing left now.”

Nikki turned first, ready to precede me through the archway to the overlook, but I stopped her. “Nikki,” I said. “This is for you.”

She stopped, confused, so I took the extra steps forward. “I couldn’t imagine going anywhere in this war without knowing you were by my side. If you want to become an Ace, the position is yours. If Nigel is willing to show you the ropes.”

The amused, sardonic response with a perfect British inflection was immediate. “I think something can be arranged.”

“Sara—” Nikki screwed her face up in confusion, looking from me to the sword. “I don’t understand.”

“As an Ace, you’ll have the right to serve any House, pitching your services to the highest bidder.” I gave her a crooked smile. “Naturally, I plan to bid high.”

“An Ace.” Nikki reached out and took the sword from me, hefting it experimentally. “I could be an Ace.” She looked up at me with bright eyes, the tears that stood behind them the first intense emotion I’d ever seen her reveal. “It matches my outfit too. I appreciate that.”

“Madam Wilde.” Jiao stood at the archway, lifting a hand. “If you are ready.”

I nodded, gesturing that the generals and Jiao precede. They filed out, and a roar filled the valley—one that only strengthened as I stepped onto the stone overlook and greeted, for the first time, the combined assemblage of the House of Swords.

I would let Jiao manage the House, and I would let Ma-Singh defend it.

But I would lead the House of Swords, for Soo.

For its people.

And for me.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“She know you’re here?”

I leaned against the countertop, paging through the flash tattoos in one of the enormous books that lined the lobby shelves of Darkworks Ink. The voice didn’t belong to Jimmy Shadow, the manager of this place. It was a woman’s voice, and it didn’t sound like its owner was surprised to see me.

“Nope,” I said, not looking up.

“She’ll be pissed when she figures it out.”

“Maybe.” I finally glanced up and took in Death, from her half-shaved white-blonde hair to her shit kicker boots. In between were mile-long legs poured into ripped jeans, a muscle shirt, and one arm completely tatted in a complex tumble of images and designs, so thick and vibrant it made me hurt to look at it. But I eventually couldn’t avoid Death’s cold blue stare, and I met it steadily. “I doubt she’ll figure it out, though, unless I show up when she’s not expecting me. And at that point, she’ll probably need my help to stay alive more than she’ll need to stay mad.” Nikki was practical that way.

Death shrugged. “Your funeral.”

Which, coming from the incarnation of Death on the Arcana Council, wasn’t the most comforting of responses.

Nevertheless, she crooked her finger and directed me to follow her to the back, where the familiar sight of the long, utilitarian hallway greeted me. Death directed me to the third room on the right, the illusion of it being another ordinary tattoo station evaporating as we stepped inside. Instead of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases stuffed with books and magazines and bric-a-brac, there was nothing but cold concrete walls and floor, the chair, and Death’s rolling cart of tattoo implements. I grimaced. At least she’d held off on displaying a drain in the floor.

“Where?” she asked, hooking her foot around her rolling stool and bringing it underneath her. As she sat, I got into the chair. I’d been inked twice by Death so far. The first, to find Atlantis. The second, to find my way to an alternate dimension, where demons roamed and the children who’d started me down my shadowed path were trapped. But this mark was different. This was an acknowledgment of a bond I hoped would never be tested, but which I’d never willingly break.

“You tell me,” I said. “I have to be able to find Nikki, no matter where she is, in this world or any other. If she’s in danger, real danger, the kind she can’t get out of, I need to know.”

“Left arm,” Death said, rolling her chair around to my other side. “The right is rationality. The left is emotion. If you want a link to know her true thoughts, gotta go with left. Of course, the leftward path is open more to interpretation, but probably not something you’ll mind. If she’s in danger, the nuances of it aren’t really so important.”

“Then the left it is.” I nodded. She poked through the bottles on her cart, the needles, and I busied myself with looking in the opposite direction. When the tattoo gun buzzed and she leaned forward, I gripped the chair with my right hand, forcing my left to stay still.

“You did a good thing with the House,” Death said, the quiet words so surprising that I blinked back at her, wincing at the sight of my own blood.

“I didn’t think you cared about that.”

“Why not? Because I didn’t show at Armaeus’s meet up?” Death twisted her lips, inking another heavy line into my skin. “He doesn’t call us all together for consensus building. The others don’t realize it, but I’ve been around other Magicians like him. I know how he works.”

I frowned, remembering again that, unlike Eshe and Viktor and even Kreios, I didn’t know when, exactly, Death had joined the Arcana Council. What had been the circumstances of her ascension? And why would she choose Death, of all roles? It seemed rude to ask her, considering she was plunging a needle into my arm, so I went for the safer choice. “And how does he work?”

“Energy—all energy. That’s what makes up balance, and that’s his stock-in-trade. When all the Council members are assembled, there’s a certain amount of energy he can draw from it, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. That extra bit between the parts and the whole is his playground. That’s one part of it.”

I couldn’t help the sense of rightness I felt at hearing Death’s words. Armaeus was energy, and I suspected, he was specifically dark energy. I’d just never known how much…perhaps still didn’t truly know.

Death moved to the right to assault my arm from another angle, and I realized I’d been quiet for too long. “And the other part?” I asked.

“The energy of the interconnections,” she said. “Armaeus has long suspected Eshe of courting darkness, and her reactions to Viktor are important data points for him to gather. Simon and Michael are pure light incarnate, God love ’em, and so they provide a good balance for the twin pools of stank. Then there’s Kreios. Kreios is dark, technically, but he edges toward neutral, which makes him a good buffer.”

She slanted me a glance. “I bet Kreios was standing close to the Magician or between him and the others.”

I frowned, tilting my head as I tried to remember the scene. “He was,” I said. “What’s that mean?”

“Like I said, buffer. So Armaeus can figure out the interplay of the others. They can’t figure him out. I don’t mind him playing his games, but that doesn’t mean I want to be a part of them, you know?”

“But you’re neutral, right?”

“Can be.” Death shrugged. “I’m not great as a buffer, though. Emotion passes through me, but I don’t refract it back to mortals the way Kreios does. I don’t show them what they want, or what they think they want. I’m more like that drain you keep imagining in the floor of this room. Emotions flow through me, but nothing flows back.”

“I think I’ve dated guys like you before.”

She snorted, and for a while, there was nothing between us but the buzz of her gun. It was almost soothing, the same sick sort of way a dentist’s drill could be soothing, the overflow of adrenaline eventually whiting everything out. I looked down as Death shifted again and tried to make out the pattern that was emerging on my skin. “What design are you using? Because if it’s a Nazi swastika or something, I’m not sure I’m going to forgive you.”

“All the good designs, already taken,” Death said dryly. “But no, nothing so obvious. It’s got to twist fully around your arm, with no beginning and no end. That way you don’t simply go find Nikki, you can bring her back as well, home to wherever you’ve designated as sanctuary.”

“Sanctuary,” I said, testing the word out. “I like that.”

“Yeah, well—this band, it isn’t only for Nikki. You can connect to anyone and bring them back, anyone with whom you hold a sacred bond.”

The needle bit into me, and I winced. “Sacred bond is good. Like a secret handshake? Because there are a bunch of people I have secret handshakes with.”

Death said something unintelligible, then bent back to her task, slowly working her way around my arm. Her focus allowed my thoughts to wander back over her own words, and I frowned.

“Why are you telling me about Armaeus? The way he works?” There had to be a reason. Death was never chatty for the sake of putting people at ease. It was generally to put them on their guard.

“He has many threads he’s pulling in the weave of the world. Some he understands, some he only thinks he understands.”

“Spoken like someone who’s lived in the frat house longer than all the other brothers.”

She paused, then quirked me a rare smile. The sight of it was spectacularly beautiful, and heartbreaking as well. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen Death smile before. What would it be like to live one’s existence where so little caused you to smile?

“That’s not a bad way of looking at it,” she said, “But it’s not quite true. Michael outranks me. Though if he gets docked for time he spent off the Council, I have him beat. It’s not the time for my story, though. Armaeus came back changed from his experience in Hell. And not in a good way.”

“Well, he’s more of an asshat, if that’s what you mean. Am I missing something else?”

She nodded, and a sour pain settled in my stomach. “He turned to the darkest forms of magic he found there and plumbed their earthly equivalents,” she said. “Drawing in all that was powerful without concern for any damage to himself.”

I frowned. “I thought he did that to make him stronger. And he is stronger.”

“A stronger Magician is not always what is in the best interests of the Council,” Death said. “Remember what I told you. The Magician and I are neutral, Viktor dark, Kreios is dark edging to neutral, and Simon and Michael light. Eshe plays at neutral but she’s dark at heart.”

“And Armaeus is kind of dark too, now,” I finished the thought for her. “And that means?”

But my question suddenly morphed into a yelp of pain as Death’s needle plunged deep into my skin. She lashed out with a curse. Everything inside me lit up in agony, revolting at the touch of her gun.

“What in—stop it!” Death growled, and I got the impression she wasn’t speaking to me. I arched off the chair, and she rose from her stool, lifting her leg to brace me to the surface. “Jimmy!” she roared. Her voice wasn’t so much of a shout as a command that rolled through the room and out of it, bursting in all directions. It seemed only a second later that the door crashed open, and Jimmy raced into the room, wild-eyed.

“What!” He took in the scene in a blink and ignored his own question, striding up to the chair and laying heavy hands on my torso.

“This is going to hurt like a bitch, and I’m not going to get it all,” bit out Death. “
This
is what I’m talking about.”

“No!” I twisted in my seat, but Death didn’t let up on the pressure she was exerting on my arm. “I can’t let that power go yet—I can’t.”

“Oh, you’ve got it all wrong, sweetheart. Your magic will stay in you. Once you flip the switch, it doesn’t unflip. But this mess—stay
still
,” she ordered, and with another plunge of her needle, I gasped, my mind’s eye exploding to reveal a pool of raging darkness that surged round the secret vault of recent memories. Death and Jimmy tipped me, and as my temple pressed to the side of the chair, I squinted and stared at the floor beneath me, not three feet away.