Redemption Song (3 page)

“I could only watch her fall apart for so long. Only spoke to her a handful of times in the past couple of years. Sent her some cash envelopes, anonymously. I failed her as a friend. I admit that. But Sophia
was
my friend.”

A thin tear trickled down his weathered cheek. I put my hand on his shoulder.

“Why did Brand kill her?” he asked, his voice cracking. “Sophia never did anything to hurt anyone. She couldn’t. She was helpless and alone. Why did she have to kill her?”

He’d answered his own question. Because she was helpless and alone. Because Meadow Brand was a psychopath, every bit as crazy as Sophia but with the meanness of a rattlesnake and a mind for murder. Because she
could
. Those were the only reasons we were going to get, and none of them were good enough.

“The whole thing was a setup,” I said. “From the arrest to the task force showing up. Orchestrated from the start. Don’t forget: when we took down Lauren Carmichael’s operation at the Silverlode, Nicky backed us up. He worked for Lauren, and then he turned on her. I don’t think she’s the kind of person to forgive that, and Meadow Brand is Lauren’s bulldog.”

“You really think she’s got that kind of pull?” Jennifer said.

“I know Carmichael-Sterling’s investing a couple hundred million into their Vegas projects. That’s got to buy you a senator or two. Someone with the juice to get the ball rolling on a real investigation, the kind Nicky can’t buy off or scare away. I don’t think Agent Black knows who’s pulling her strings. She came across like a straight shooter. Crusader for justice and all that.”

“Better for us if she was corrupt.” Jennifer slouched sullenly in the backseat. “I can deal with corrupt. All right, so how much trouble do you think we’re in?”

“They can’t prove a thing,” I said. “If they could, they’d have charged us and
then
offered a life preserver. If Nicky goes down, though, and he rolls on everybody to get a better deal for himself, which you know he will…”

“Maybe it’s time,” Jennifer said slowly, choosing each word with caution, “we did something about our Nicky problem.”

The three of us rode in silence. Bentley tried to pretend he hadn’t just heard Jennifer call for the head of the most powerful man in Las Vegas. I tried to figure out a way to talk her down from that ledge.

“We don’t have a Nicky problem,” I said. “We have a Carmichael-Sterling problem. Lauren Carmichael and Meadow Brand are all that’s left of their little cult. It’s why they’re playing games like this, sending the law after us, instead of risking a head-on fight. We need to shut them down. Permanently.”

“I would like to be involved in that,” Bentley said softly, staring at the road.

“I hate to raise the issue,” I said, “but Sophia’s house—”

Bentley nodded. “Corman and I will arrange it.”

A death in our community means making sure nothing remains to betray our secrets. No grimoires or journals, no cursed relics or magic wands, everything has to vanish. It’s the equivalent of erasing the porn on a dead friend’s computer before his mom sees it, but the stakes are a little higher. Unofficially, it’s a chance for friends to come together, reminisce, and swap stories about the old times while stealing off with the lingering secret remnants of your life.

We call it a locust job.

• • •

Bentley dropped me off at the Taipei Tower’s valet driveway. I stood in the glittering skyscraper’s shadow, checking my watch and taking a deep breath. I was beyond late. Past the automatic glass doors polished to a glossy sheen, I strode across a carpet decorated with crimson chrysanthemums on my way to the elevators.

Kensho Bistro is on the third floor. Kensho means “an enlightening experience,” and the food arguably qualifies. The restaurant is a span of warm pale browns and sienna, lit by round chandeliers sheathed in white paneling. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Caitlin at a window-table, along with another couple. It looked like they’d barely started eating. Good sign.

She rose as I scurried over, her scarlet hair in a twist at one pale shoulder, wearing a silk jersey dress that could have come straight from a Paris runway.

“I am so sorry—” I started to say, but she took my hand and shook her head, moving close.

“Jennifer called me while she was waiting for them to release you,” she murmured, her voice tinged with a Scottish burr. “We’ll discuss that later. Company now.”

The woman on the other side of the table looked like a Hollywood actress trying to play the role of a suburban soccer mom. Just a little too perfect, too precise and controlled, to be real. She also glowed like a black diamond in my mind’s eye, the same way Caitlin did. When she took my hand to shake it, her skin was smooth as glass.

“Emma Loomis,” she said with a smile. “So. The mysterious Daniel Faust. Everyone’s been talking about you at the office.”

“Hopefully nothing too terrible,” I said.

“Oh, I don’t know, you look like you could be a dangerous distraction.”

She held my hand a little too long, until Caitlin discreetly cleared her throat. The man next to her looked as awkward as I felt. He was a stocky guy, maybe in his early forties, with a goatee going silver at the edges.

“Ben,” he said, offering his hand. If Caitlin and Emma’s auras drenched the room in power like a pair of magical hurricanes, Ben was mild humidity. Still, he had a friendly smile and a firm grip that had me liking him already.

“Oh,” Caitlin said, “and you also haven’t met Melanie, Emma and Ben’s daughter.”

I didn’t need a codebook to unravel that message. I had most definitely crossed paths with the blue-haired teenage punk seated across from me. When a pack of feral cambion kidnapped me a few weeks back, she was the voice of reason in the gang and kept me alive long enough for Caitlin to come to the rescue. I gathered that Caitlin had given her a pass, and Melanie’s folks didn’t know about her little walk on the wild side. We gave each other a nod in mutual silent understanding.

There was a modern family for you. Demon mom, human dad, cambion kid. Just like Caitlin and me, minus the kid and the wedding rings. Wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

“So, you work with Caitlin?” I asked Emma, after taking a quick glance around to make sure there weren’t any other diners seated within earshot.

“She’s the muscle, I’m the money,” Emma said, drawing a sniff of derision from Caitlin. Emma slid a possessive arm around Ben’s shoulder. “With the help of the world’s greatest accountant, of course.”

Ben chuckled and sipped from his glass of water. “You keep making it, I’ll keep counting it. How about you, Dan? What do you do for a living?”

Well, Ben, until recently I was a hired wand for the biggest gang boss in Las Vegas, but we had a falling-out, so mostly I just run short cons and sometimes busk on Fremont Street doing sleight-of-hand tricks for spare change. I guess you could say I’m sort of a criminal bum.

“I’m between jobs right now,” I told him. “The economy being what it is.”

“I hear you, I hear you. Hey, you don’t have any financial background, do you?”

“I robbed a bank once,” I said, and Caitlin kicked my shin under the table. To their credit, Emma and Ben favored me with polite chuckles. Melanie smirked. I liked the kid.

“Daniel is too modest,” Caitlin said. “He’s helping me with a side project. Hound business.”

The courts of hell had been at each other’s throats for centuries, a bottomless nest of backstabbing and intrigue that made the Cold War look like a playground slap fight. Our particular chunk of Earth was claimed by a chess-playing hard case named Prince Sitri. According to Caitlin, he’d been on the throne since Hannibal discovered elephants, and he was so slippery he would orchestrate assassination plots against
himself
when he got bored, just to keep his wits sharp.

Caitlin was his hound. In other words, enforcer, sheriff, diplomat, and executioner when she had to be. Thankless job, if you ask me, but she was scary-good at it.

“Ooh, sounds secret,” Emma teased.

“Need-to-know basis,” Caitlin said.

A waiter glided over and set a tray down in front of me. Freshly cooked prawns glistened on a bed of greens and tickled my nose with a rich, spicy swirl of aromas.

“You were late,” Caitlin said, “so I ordered for you. Tiger prawns in wasabi aioli sauce. Careful, it’s hot.”

“I hate it when you do that,” I said, though I couldn’t point out a single time when her habit of ordering for me in restaurants had resulted in a bad meal.

“She did it to us, too,” Melanie muttered.

Ben studied a forkful of steaming rice. “But it’s
really
good.”

“I know what people like,” Caitlin said. “It’s a gift. So, Emma. Where are we on the ranch project?”

“We’re signing tomorrow. Things couldn’t be running any more smoothly.”

“Ranch project?” I asked.

Emma beamed at me. “It’s a coup.”

Four

“W
hat kind of coup, exactly?” I asked, though part of me thought I might be happier not knowing. Damn my curiosity.

“The metaphorical kind,” Caitlin said, “but brilliant nonetheless.”

“Thank you, dear heart,” Emma turned back to me. “I’m sure you know that our prince has a more liberal policy on the cambion than some of our closest neighbors. Well, things have escalated. The Court of Night-Blooming Flowers issued an…order.”

She cast a hesitant glance at Melanie. The teenager sighed.

“I know what a pogrom is, Mom. You can say it. They’re killing everybody who’s a halfblood. Like me.”

Emma’s smile faded. I wondered how many miles away marked the line where her daughter would be murdered on sight. I wondered what I’d do, if I were in her shoes and saw that line creeping closer by the day.

“Prince Sitri,” Caitlin said, “in his eternal benevolence, has opened his arms. Any cambion who can reach our declared borders under their own power has a promise of haven. We won’t help them escape the Flowers’ territory—that would be an act of war—but we won’t turn anyone away.”

“We received fifteen new arrivals last week,” Emma said. “Half of them hadn’t eaten or slept in days. I expect another fifteen or twenty before this is all over. We needed a solution, especially for the…borderline ferals. Someplace they could work, be rehabilitated, and serve the court’s interests in peace.”

She tapped her iPhone and showed me the screen. An aerial photograph looked down over a sprawling, dusty desert ranch. I half expected to see a tumbleweed rolling down the main thoroughfare, or maybe a couple of cowboys out for a high noon showdown.

“The Silk Ranch. Four hundred miles into the desert. No neighbors until you hit Carson City.”

I squinted at the photograph. “Wait, isn’t that a brothel?”

Emma nodded. “An extremely profitable one. The current owner’s absolutely desperate to sell, though, and he’s giving it to us for a song.”

“Oh?” I said. “How’d you manage that?”

She favored me with a sly, indulgent smile, like a cat who’d stumbled upon a saucer of cream. “We of the Choir of Envy are consummate negotiators, Daniel. When we see something we want, we take it.”

Her hand tightened on Ben’s shoulder.

“We’ll find work for suitable candidates on the grounds,” she said. “It’s not all sex work, of course. Any business of that size needs support and grounds staff—”

“Gee, Mom.” Melanie’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Can I get a summer job there? I’ll be the best jizz-mopper
ever
!”

“
Melanie
!” Emma snapped. I quickly shoved a forkful of prawn in my mouth, trying to keep myself from laughing, but I couldn’t hold a straight face. Melanie grinned at me, sensing a kindred spirit at the table.

“Language,” Caitlin told Melanie, then looked sidelong at me and muttered, “Don’t encourage her.”

“The end result,” Emma said, still glaring at her daughter, “will be a sleek, efficient machine: dependable cash flow for our regional operations, a safe haven for our new refugees, and extra space on the grounds for special projects. The current staff will be replaced or made use of, depending on their potential.”

“Made use of?” I asked.

“Made use of,” she said.

• • •

We ate and we lingered until the small talk ran out, and Ben said he had to get back to the office. I noted, as Emma ushered her family out the door, that she left us to pay the entire check.

“Happens every time,” Caitlin said. “Can you come upstairs for a bit? Do you have to leave?”

There was something in her eyes, a tiredness that made me worry. I took her hand and we walked though the hotel together, on our way to the elevators.

“Out of curiosity,” I said, “was she hitting on me?”

“Of course she was. You’re mine. Choir of Envy, Daniel. The only thing she likes more than having new things is taking them away from other people.”

“Ben must be a very patient man.”

She gave me a faint smile as she pushed the call button.

“Ben’s a devoted father. It doesn’t matter what Emma does. He stays for Melanie. Thanks for not mentioning her little adventure, by the way. I think she already learned her lesson.”

“Eh, she’s a good kid,” I said with a shrug. We got onto the elevator, and as soon as the doors closed, leaving us alone in the cage, she slumped against the mahogany walls and closed her eyes.

“Hey.” I touched her arm. “You okay?”

“I’m just tired, Daniel. That lunch is the first real meal I’ve had since our dinner two nights ago. I’ve been working around the clock. As it turns out, Emma’s wonderful plan is neither as smooth nor as carefree as she’d like to spin it. Of course, she doesn’t have to do the hard work either. The refugees are…a problem.”

“What, are they ferals, like the ones that jumped me?”

The elevator chimed and the doors rumbled open on the fifty-sixth floor.

“Worse,” she said, leading me to her door. “Potentially, they’re zealots.”

Caitlin’s penthouse could have been featured in a music video from the eighties. In fact, I think it might have been. In her living room, an original Nagel painting looked out over an expanse of polished hardwood, black leather, and chrome, all cast in the glow of track lights. I sat Caitlin down on the plush sofa and stepped into the kitchen, picking out a light chardonnay from a stainless steel wine rack. I came back with a pair of glasses, pausing by the stereo to put on her favorite Howard Jones album.