Wilde Card: Immortal Vegas, Book 2 (6 page)

“Detective Brody Rooks, Las Vegas Metro Police. Formerly Officer Brody Rooks of the Memphis Police Department, who worked with a very bright, very skilled young Connected named Sariah Pelter.”

“I’m not that girl anymore, and it’s ancient history. Ancient and irrelevant.”

“You’re protecting him. Why?”

I snorted. “Brody doesn’t need my protection.
You
do. Whatever he says or thinks he remembers, don’t bet on it being accurate. He was a good cop, a cop who tried hard to find missing kids, and I let him down big. The fact that he got tangled up in my mess in the first place was his own bad luck.”

“He has feelings for you. Feelings that extend beyond nostalgia.”

I ignored the strange pang those words caused. “He thought I was
dead
, Armaeus. And he’s seen a lot more death than anyone should. So yeah, me showing up in Vegas ten years later caught him off guard. You may have forgotten what it was like to be human, but not everyone has.”

The moment the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were the wrong thing to say. So I held on to them with both hands and pummeled forward, using them like a battering ram. I squeezed shut my newly opened third eye and glared at Armaeus with my normal ones. “You don’t get to play around with people just because you’re bored. Get out of Brody’s head and stay out unless you’re there to
help
him
. Which we both know you’re not. I want your word on that. He’s not a toy.”

“You have feelings for him too.”

“Oh, give me a break. I’d have feelings for Tickle Me Elmo if he were hot enough. Are we done here? Or when does my babysitter arrive? And please don’t tell me you assigned me to the Devil. Because my ‘feelings’ for him would put you in traction.”

That arrow seemed to hit its mark. Armaeus’s face shuttered again, his tone perfectly even. “Kreios will, in fact, accompany you to the cocktail party hosted by the Rarity tomorrow evening. Given his interest in art, he has several secular dealings with the collecting community’s richest families, and he possesses a collection that is renowned the world over. His attendance won’t draw attention.”

“Clearly you guys don’t club together much.”

Armaeus continued, his words even more clipped. “He’ll brief you on the details later today, I suspect, and give you additional information regarding your assignment at McCarron. He will not be accompanying you for that.”

“Fine.” A mission brief had never felt more like straight-out warfare. “So whatcha got on these scroll cases. Is there a file?”

“Of course.” He pulled a flash drive out of his jacket pocket and tossed it to me. “Everything you need to know about the Rarity job. As I mentioned, the current owner of the scroll cases is Jarvis Fuggeren. He will be easily recognizable and will doubtless be generous, attentive, and gregarious, but do not be disarmed. He is, most of all, very dangerous.”

I waved the drive. “Got it. Rich too, I expect?”

“Quite.”

“So, he doesn’t
actually
need the money, no matter how hot the market is.”

Armaeus inclined his head. “He does not.”

“And you say he’s not Connected?”

“Technically, that is unknown. His abilities may be cloaked by his possession of the artifacts. Or, he truly could be a collector of curiosities seeking to make the most viable sale possible for items of no intrinsic value to him, other than what they can fetch in a highly specific marketplace.”

“Fair enough. Does he know I’m coming to the party?”

“Merely as one guest among many.”

“And who else are you sending to play chaperone? Don’t say you either.”

His gaze shifted back to me. “It would disturb you to have me there?”

“Not at all. You, me, and Kreios? Total psycho sandwich.”

“An interesting experiment.” Still, Armaeus was cool as a cucumber mojito. “I’m sending you with the Fool.”

“Oh no. No, no, no. The last time that guy came within ten feet of me, I ended up bald-assed drunk in some dive cantina, convinced he was named Luscious and I was Miss Chiquita Banana. That wouldn’t be a good start to this little mission.”

Something flickered in Armaeus’s expression. Annoyance, irritation, defensiveness, I didn’t know. Didn’t much care either.

“Simon will accompany you to the airport site and get you in, ensuring that you breach all technology barriers,” he said. “It’s a simple enough request, Miss Wilde.”

The not so subtle reminder of who was the boss in this working arrangement shut me up. Sort of. “Fair enough. Have him fetch me whenever he’s ready.” I tucked the drive into my pocket. “Meanwhile, what do we have on SANCTUS? You really think they’re coming to Vegas?”

“All indications would say yes.” He held up a hand. “But we do not expect any sort of attack until solstice, later this week. Your work may well be done by then, which might significantly change the nature of a SANCTUS intervention.”

“Change it how?”

“That depends entirely on what you discover with the scroll cases.”

“And if they’re the real deal, we use them to implode SANCTUS.” I frowned. “What are we going to do, throw the things at them?”

“I think it would be better for you to focus on the task at hand first.”

“Trust me, I’ve got enough bandwidth for both now
and
later.”

“I have no doubt. But it’s not the future I am most curious about. Or the present, actually.” The Magician shifted toward me, and I blinked, refocusing on him. “To ensure the success of your work with the Council, there are things I wish to know about you, Miss Wilde. Things I must and will know.”

Careful, careful, careful.
The sweat pooled between my shoulder blades, then traced a shivery trail down my back. “What kind of things?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I knew the incident he wanted to “explore” further. He’d been fascinated, not repulsed, by my blackout the night we’d planned to spend together. It had never happened to him before, and for someone pushing nine hundred, that was saying something. “Maybe I can tell you the answers and save you the trouble.”

As usual, however, Armaeus was not merely one step ahead of me, he was through the door and around the corner.

“I wish to see the day you left Memphis as a seventeen-year-old girl. Your memories, Miss Wilde. Not Detective Rooks’s. Your feelings. Your mind. If you would give me access—”

“What?” I gaped at him. I’d spent most of the past ten years trying to bury those memories. Seeing Brody here in Vegas had stirred up too many emotions, too many regrets. Letting Armaeus kick through that sandbox was not going to help anyone. “Why? Why would you possibly care?”

Derision dripped icily off the Magician’s words. “It is not a question of caring. The job of the Council—my job—is to ensure the
balance
of all magic. That means understanding the capabilities of the Connected, whether those stray to the dark or the light. I do
not
yet understand you. There is something about you I cannot place, a puzzle I have yet to solve. Until I do solve it, you remain a risk to magic as a whole.”

Irritation flared anew. “A risk? Me. I’m the one trying to help the Connected, in case you missed that detail. I’m hardly a risk.”

“Exactly my point. Your work is admirable, almost a crusade. I suspect the events of your last day in Memphis might shed some light on the reasons and motivations behind that crusade. That, in turn, will help me understand how you came to be, and how you fit into the larger picture.”

I blinked at him, overwhelmed with a rush of emotions that were neither welcome nor particularly impressive. Betrayal. Hurt. Incredible, unreasonable loneliness. I scowled, stuffing down my useless feelings. “I tell you what,” I said. “You break your rules, I’ll break mine. If I screw up, or if I need you to forego your precious balance in order to protect Connecteds from SANCTUS, and you do it, then you have the right to muck around in my head, fix what needs fixing, see what you need to see. Because nothing matters more to me than making sure the Connected don’t get wiped out by those freaks. Nothing.” He watched me impassively, and I willed my heart to stop thudding so hard. “But if that happens, you’ll get one shot. And one shot alone.”

“That’s all I will need—”

“I’m not finished yet. After this job closes, my brain and all its contents are off the table.” I jabbed my finger at him. “I mean
off the table
. Never again do you ask, never again do you try. I want your word.”

Armaeus regarded me with his cool golden eyes, always assessing, always weighing. The true Tarot Magician, with every element in play, all the possibilities in the universe, and no single future yet chosen.

He nodded.

“You have my word as bond, Miss Wilde.”

Chapter Five

The cab ride back to my temporary digs at the Palazzo Hotel had done little to soothe my nerves. Neither had the cheery waves of the front desk clerks, despite their apparent obliviousness to my train-wreck appearance. No doubt, they’d seen far worse.

Ah, Vegas. City of No Judgment.

But while Armaeus’s flash drive had supplied the basics of the assignment, I needed to understand more. The Rarity was coming here. To Vegas. For the first time in forever. And apparently on the docket were magical artifacts that hadn’t seen daylight since Anthony and Cleopatra had checked out each other’s asps. Surely that was causing a ripple in the Connected community.

There was one surefire way to find out. I peered at my laptop as the cab turned off the Strip, angling us toward Dixie Quinn’s Chapel of Everlasting Love in the Stars. I’d first set foot in the chapel a few weeks ago, but it had already become sort of a command base for me, second only to the Magician’s trans-dimensional ultra-highrise. From deep within her white stucco and kitsch shrine to star-blessed love, Vegas’s number one romance astrologer played mother hen to all the Connecteds in Vegas, whether they be wide-eyed newbs or shifty-souled veterans. She’d know if there was anyone talking about the Rarity, or anyone poking around I should watch out for.

On the laptop screen in front of me, Jarvis Fuggeren smiled winningly for the camera.

Thirty-something, patrician, richer than God.

Check, check, and check.

“Why are you selling the scroll cases, Jarvis?” I muttered. “Who has you spooked?” Studying his smug face, it was hard to imagine anyone or anything making the Austrian financier nervous. Then again, his family had been wheeling and dealing with kings, emperors, and popes since the Middle Ages. That was a lot of time to cultivate enemies.

The cab bounced into a large parking lot, and I glanced up, then froze. “Um—go on past the chapel and idle in a space next to the tattoo shop, okay? Keep the meter running, I’ll pay.”

“Whatever you say.”

Ah, Vegas, City of Chill Cabbies.

I hunkered down in my seat, glad for the tinted windows, and took in the perfect Sin City chapel view: tortured topiaries, sun-blasted concrete, and a cheerful line of white plaster geese, all dressed up in wedding finery. Standing in front of those geese was the real show.

Today Dixie Quinn was dressed in another white cowgirl outfit, this one accented with a pink scarf and a bright pink cowboy hat that set off her tumble of perfect blonde curls. She was a tiny thing, barely taller than five feet even in her thigh-high boots, but the top of her hat almost came up to the chin of the man whose chest she was leaning against. She smiled up at him coyly, beseechingly, as if completely unaware that she was perched in the middle of a parking lot, being watched by God, the world, and a row of geese with marriage on their minds. From my angle, it kind of looked like marriage was on Dixie’s mind too.

The athletically built man with her was dressed in nondescript browns, his jacket open to reveal creased pants and a scuffed belt beneath his white button-down shirt. His hair was a little too long, his body a little too tense, his expression impossible to read at this distance. There was no denying that he wasn’t pushing Dixie away, though.

And she, maybe suddenly thinking the same thing, edged ever so much closer toward Detective Brody Rooks.

Great.

My phone chose that second to vibrate, and I stuck my hand in my hoodie pocket, fishing around while I kept my eyes glued on the Dynamic Duo. One person in the world had my private number, and I spoke his name as I fit the phone to my ear. “Father Jerome. You’re safe? Everything’s okay?”

“I should be the one asking that question, no?” As usual, Father Jerome’s rich voice filled a hole inside me I didn’t realize stayed empty most of the time. I’d known the old priest more than five years, and he was an immovable object in the dark maelstrom that howled ever louder through the Connected community with each passing month. “What is this second payment to my account, Sara? You only returned to the U.S. this morning.”

I smiled, warmed by the musical inflection of the old priest’s accent. “What can I say, I’m a lucky girl.”

“We would be so lucky to have you back in Paris, to stay longer this time than a morning, yes? It would be good for you to be here with us.”

“Why?” I frowned, focusing. What’s wrong?”

“Not wrong, Sara. Never wrong. It all is as it must be, good and bad.” Jerome’s words soothed my momentary panic, and I returned my gaze to the intent conversation of Dixie and Brody. I didn’t have anything against Dixie, I liked the woman. Really. And if she liked Brody, well, that was perfectly fine. I had no claims on the man.

Then Jerome’s words penetrated my brain. “We are getting reports of increased trafficking activity out of the Ukraine. The community is stirring with worry and fear, and there’s a sense of them being driven underground, of being hunted, that is becoming a part of the conversation no matter who is doing the talking. The house in Bencançon might not be enough. It might be the wrong idea altogether. The children may need several homes, in secret, where they can stay hidden.”

I frowned. “Hidden from what? SANCTUS or trophy hunters?”

“Both. There is a great agitation here, it worries me.” Jerome paused. “I did receive a visit from a young man who said he was a friend of yours. Max Bertrand?”