Wilde Card: Immortal Vegas, Book 2 (25 page)

“True.” Armaeus’s gaze flickered. “
You
must be more careful, however. You should not have attempted to heal me.” He shook his head, his gaze roaming my face, the crown of my head, before coming back to lock on my eyes again. “I was hurt more than I’d anticipated, and the recovery came upon me slowly enough that I didn’t harm you or, worse, consume you.”

I frowned at him, not really wanting to consider the ramifications of “consume.” “I don’t know, your healing seemed kinda fast and furious from my angle, just saying.”

His brow arched. “I was able to maintain control.”

“And so was I.” I pushed him back, and he fell away. “I get that you’re the all-powerful one, but don’t miss the important part here. I did this.” I gestured at his body. “You needed it, and I gave it. And both of us—well, one of us—kept her clothes on. Win-win.”

His eyes were dark, too dark as his gaze shifted to meet mine. “And how do you win?”

I kept my emotions on careful lockdown. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt either of us. “Well, number one, I got the whole contact high. I suspect I’ll start feeling the results of that power infusion any moment. Number two, I know you’ll compensate me for going above and beyond.”

“And compensation was your main goal?”

“Compensation is always my main goal.” I lifted a finger. “But I don’t need your money, Armaeus. Not this time. I need your honesty. Tell me the truth: did you drive all those Connecteds and wannabes to Vegas to draw SANCTUS there?”

His mood turned instantly stony, which was enough answer for me. I rolled to a sitting position, a little too grateful for this new surge of anger, burning off the last of my desire that refused to yield. “Why? Tell me why, when you’re all high and mighty in your noninterference, would you
manipulate
innocent people to toddle into your tailor-made trap?” I might have yelled that last bit, but Simon was smart enough not to come running.

Armaeus scowled at me a long moment. When he spoke, his words were clipped. “SANCTUS has been building in power for decades, but over the past year, its activities have stepped up markedly.”

“Yeah, well, so have the activities of the entire black market. Why do you think I’m so desperate for every job that comes my way?”

“This is different. SANCTUS is poised for a strike, but there has been no reason for its sudden influx of power. The balance of magic is as it ever was. We could have gone another several months, another year without them striking.”

“And that would have been bad, why?”

He leveled his gaze at me. I held up my hands. “Oh no, no, no. You’re not laying this one on me.”

“You agreed to remain in Vegas for the duration of your work with the High Priestess, but I needed you to understand the full extent of what you might accomplish. You are, arguably, a wild card in the war on magic. You don’t know your own abilities.”

“I know my own abilities just fine, thanks. I find things. That’s what I do. That’s all I do.”

“You find things, yes.” Armaeus had somehow edged closer to me. I remained seated on the bed, but he leaned forward, crowding against me in the small space. “But that’s
not
all that you do. Your abilities under the influence of the Pythene gas outstripped any of our expectations. And as Eshe intimated, the gas has dispersed from your system, yet your abilities remain.”

“But they’re still a variation on finding stuff,” I hedged.

“Your ability to manifest as an
illusion
convincing enough to handle a corporeal object and shoot men who believed they were being shot until the illusion lifted, is not a variation on ‘finding.’”

I opened my mouth, shut it. Tried again. “Okay, you have me there. But I was in the middle of the entire Council on that excursion. Between you, the Devil, Eshe, and the Fool, something was bound to give.”

“Perhaps. And perhaps something else will give, as you say, should you be tested further.”

“Are you
trying
to piss me off here?” I glared at him. He was every inch the bronze god, gorgeously perfect despite the tattered bandages hanging off him, and every bit as impersonal. “Connecteds aren’t yours to ‘test,’ Armaeus, any more than they’re yours to use as bait. I don’t care how long you’ve been creeping around this world. They’re humans.”

Another lifted brow. “I’m human.”

“Kinda not really, no.” I crossed my arms. “And some of the people waiting back in Vegas for the apocalypse or solstice or whatever aren’t even
skilled
Connecteds. They’re right at the fringe, open to what’s out there without fully grasping it. Still others have abilities but no idea how to use them. They’re not prepared. They’re not combatants in this little war you’ve set up, they’re victims. I simply can’t understand how you could have justified summoning them this way.”

His gaze didn’t waver, and after another beat, I connected the rest of the dots all on my own. “You bastard.”

He shrugged. “You have a history of not leaving behind those who cannot fight for themselves.”

“Yeah, well, guess who I
do
have a history of leaving behind—”

A sharp rap came at the door, and without being asked, Simon opened the cabin and peered inside. His delighted smile turned disgusted when he saw my comparative state of dress to Armaeus’s undress. Then he noticed Armaeus’s chest, and his brows went up.

“Glad you’re feeling better. Now if you two are done cat-fighting, we’re about to land. And despite some of us having immortal powers, the captain is adamant that we all be strapped in our seats for the event.” His gaze traveled between us. “Unless you’d rather be strapped into the bed?”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Thank you for your willingness to meet at the station, Miss Wilde.”

Brody’s words were clipped, formal, and I shrugged, glad I’d had the foresight to shower off the dirt and muck of Khemenu before dialing up Fuggeren. Brody had picked up instead, and had tersely explained that he’d been assigned to a special task force in charge of protecting the gold show. The Rarity had opened to great fanfare despite the attack at the gala, and all the pieces other than the scroll cases had been recovered within hours, spread around Vegas like Easter eggs.

Distractions.

Now I turned from the gleaming gold scroll cases and faced the two men. It was already three o’clock, but Fuggeren looked like he’d come out of the dry cleaners ten minutes ago, his skin and hair as perma-pressed as his suit. He smiled at me, and I could almost hear the money landing in my bank account. I’d impressed him. He was a good man to impress.

“You had no difficulty reclaiming the pieces?” Fuggeren asked, earning him a scowl from Brody. “They appear to be barely handled.”

“I didn’t. Thank you for the use of your transport and pilot.” We both knew I hadn’t used his resources, but with any luck, Brody didn’t. Fuggeren inclined his head.

He was right too. The scroll cases had gotten more than a spit shine from Armaeus. They’d been transfused with enough Magician mojo to make them practically glow from the inside. Even the smallest one, the fake one, looked better than the original, though all of them were once again dormant. As if the nervous energy that had knocked me across the storage room at the airport had finally been burned off completely, and now they were napping.

I narrowed my eyes on the cases. Had Armaeus done something more to them than he’d told me? I hadn’t had time to inspect them myself, nor had I any facility with the ancient script. How would I know?

“Where’s Grigori Mantorov?” Brody’s words recalled my attention, and I smiled into his scowl. H knew he was being lied to, but not how, exactly.

“I suspect he’s in Egypt,” I said. “I was lucky enough to intercept his courier en route to the temple site in El Ashmunein. Fortunately it’s a long drive from Hurghada Airport. I had ample time to catch up.”

“He wasn’t with the cases?”

“Not that I noticed.”

Brody’s glare would have made me uncomfortable any other time, but I was still buzzed from my mile-high healing session with Armaeus, and not likely to come down anytime soon. I also needed to get the hell out of the station and back to Nikki. She’d been radio silent while I was out of town, but my phone had been blowing up since I’d landed, asking me to please get to the chapel already. I didn’t think she was about to propose.

“Detective Rooks, I plan to make a commendation to the mayor regarding the conduct of you and your staff throughout this happily brief investigation.” Fuggeren’s words made Brody blink, and he refocused on the man. “Without your support, my property would not have been returned to me so quickly, and the Rarity Gold Show would not have gone on without a hitch. Further, we would have drawn undue attention and speculation to a city which does not deserve it for anything other than the most positive of reasons.”

Brody didn’t lighten up. “I’ll need to file a report.”

“And I’ll substantiate any appropriate version of the case that helps you the most,” Fuggeren said. His words were light, and surprisingly, Brody didn’t bristle. Instead he leaned back, considering the man.

“You don’t need to do me any favors, Mr. Fuggeren.”

“On the contrary, I do.” Fuggeren smiled, and in that smile wasn’t simply a man worth billions, but the favored son of a long line of billionaires. “And you’ll find I always pay my debts. Miss Wilde.” He turned to me with a speculative gaze that noted every crease and wrinkle in my shirt, every scuff and bruise on my skin. It wasn’t a lascivious assessment, because Fuggeren wasn’t interested in me as a person. He was interested in what I could do for him. I was getting used to that kind of scrutiny these days, from mortal and immortal alike. “I hope to have the pleasure of working with you in the future.”

“I look forward to it.” I stood, and the men followed suit. Fuggeren leaned in to shake my hand, then bent quickly toward me, as if to deliver one of those European kisses to the cheek that I was so terrible at reciprocating. When he neared my face though, his words were low. And definite.

“I assume you have kept the smallest case for a good reason. I look forward to its return when you are finished.”

Then he straightened, smiling again broadly. I grinned gamely back. As we both turned to the door, Brody gestured for me to remain. “I’ll need you for a moment more, Ms. Wilde.” His glance wasn’t lascivious either, more was the pity. I definitely preferred lasciviousness to officiousness in my cops.

I loitered in the conference room while the two men made their good-byes. It hadn’t been an official meeting with suspects or persons of interest. It hadn’t been recorded. We weren’t in a room with a two-way mirror, either, which was probably a good thing. I always ended up staring at myself in those things.

“Thanks for waiting, Sara.” For once, Brody didn’t stumble over my name, and I found myself a little wistful about that. It had become the one piece that linked us to the past, to a time when life maybe wasn’t a whole lot better, but it was a whole lot simpler.

He gestured for me to sit. When I didn’t, he sighed. “We’re on the same side, remember?”

“The same side?” I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice. Brody did that to a person. Especially to my person. “Then explain this charade to me.” I flicked my hand at the room around us. “You asked me to come down to the station to meet with you and Jarvis. I did. But you didn’t record the conversation, and you didn’t video it, from what I can see. It wasn’t observed. So why, exactly, are we doing this here? What do you have to gain from it?”

His eyes betrayed his amusement. “You think I’m doing this for my personal gain?”

“Well, it’s not like Fuggeren gives a shit about being in a police station.” I folded my arms. “While I make a habit of avoiding them.”

“Yet here you are, being a good citizen, showing your cooperation with local law enforcement.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t patronize me, Brody.”

“Then don’t be an idiot.” He’d taken a step closer. “I’ve taken a lot of heat for some of the crazy-ass shit that’s happened in this city over the past few days, and I expect to be taking a lot more. The least you can do, while you’re here anyway, which we both know isn’t for very long, is to keep me informed of the worst of what’s to come.”

My gaze sharpened. He couldn’t mean what I—

Brody’s irritated wave cut that thought off. “No, Sari—Sara. I don’t mean with your goddamned cards. You want to use those, that’s on your own time. I’m not mixing that into police business, not anymore. But you’ve got ears, you’ve got eyes. You’re in tight with Nikki Dawes, and she is a hell of a lot more than the natterclack she puts herself out to be.”

Natterclack?
Still, I nodded slowly, trying to follow Brody’s words. “You want me to be a snitch?”

He rolled his eyes. “Sara, are you, or the people you hang out with, doing anything wrong?”

“Not at all.”

“Then why would I need you to snitch on them? I need you to tell me what’s coming that may
harm
them. God knows Dixie Quinn has been running to me for the last two years every time one of the Connected community gets so much as a hangnail. Surely you can provide information of a broader scope if you hear it.”

“From what I understand, that’s not the real reason Dixie was running to you.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, of course, I regretted them. Brody’s brows shot up, his lips twitching into an almost-smile. “Why, Sara, I didn’t know you cared.”

Which was bullshit, and we both knew it. But it also allowed him to take a step closer to me, until we were almost nose to nose. The heat of the man enveloped me in a way that was nothing like the kinetic, overpowering energy of the Magician. This was much more subtle, yet stronger too, a magnetic draw I couldn’t fight at this range any more than I could fight gravity.

“So tell me, is that ‘caring’ the reason why you’re staying…or is it the reason why you’re determined to leave the city the first moment you can?”

“I don’t want to have this conversation with you.”

“It’s not a conversation, it’s a question.” He kept his body loose and easy, in marked contrast to mine. “It’d be helpful for me to understand exactly why you’re hanging around, and where things stand between us.”