The Living End (8 page)

I shouldn’t have been surprised to find a conference room down there. Mahogany walls, low lights, and a long table of smoked glass. Cylinders of Voss water and crystal glasses sat out at each place setting. It was the sort of room where I could imagine some Fortune 500 types meeting for intense business negotiations. Then I noticed the manacles dangling from stainless-steel hooks in the walls, spaced out around the room.

Caitlin followed my eye and winked. “We won’t need those tonight. Try a chair instead. They’re ergonomic. Haworth Zody Executive models, in fact.”

She took the seat at the head of the table and gestured for me to sit at her right hand. I had to admit it was a damn comfortable chair. “Only the best of everything?”

“When Emma’s buying. She’s got an eye for design. She also just texted to say she won’t be joining us tonight. She’s been out at the ranch since Wednesday supervising construction.”

I blinked. “Since Wednesday? Who the hell is watching Melanie?”

“She’s almost eighteen, Daniel. She doesn’t need a babysitter.”

“You know what I mean,” I said. “She shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Caitlin cracked one of the Voss cylinders open. Sparkling water burbled into her glass, splashing against its curving crystal lip.

“I know,” she said. “Tell you what. Let’s go out there tomorrow for lunch. We’ll see if we can cheer her up a little.”

“Isn’t tomorrow a school day?”

She shrugged, taking a sip from her glass. “And what teenager isn’t cheered up by getting out of school early? I’ll forge a note from her mother.”

“You’re a genius,” I said.

“So you say, but you’re the one who got us out of trouble today.”

“That,” I said, “you can thank the shampoo commercial for. Crass commercialism to the rescue. So what’s going to happen to Pete?”

“No human host, no possession. The house developed an unfortunate and sudden plague of roaches. Fortunately, posing as the homeowner, I was able to find an emergency exterminator. They draped the house with a tarp and started pumping in gas within the hour.”

“Wait,” I said. “You got that kid killed? I’m not okay with that, Caitlin.”

She waved a careless hand at me. “Hardly. ‘Pete’ realized he was marinating in poisoned meat and fled. His mortal shell stumbled out of the house, coughing himself hoarse. He’s in the hospital now, being treated for chemical exposure, but he should survive. Maybe, if he remembers any of this, it’ll teach him not to play with the occult.”

The door swung open. Naavarasi swept into the room with her lips pursed and eyes cold. Even from my seat, I couldn’t miss the faint odor of insecticide clinging to her evening gown.

“O
h,” Caitlin said to Naavarasi, pretending to look surprised. “You didn’t come straight here, did you? No, you must have gone to the house to see about your little friend Pete. Sorry about the fumigation. But we did send him home, as agreed. Why do you look so disappointed?”

Naavarasi took a seat at the conference table. Across from me, two chairs down from Caitlin.

“I’m not disappointed at all,” she said, none of her words matching the look on her face. “I’m pleased. Wonderfully pleased.”

“I’m so glad to hear that,” Caitlin said. “After all, I wouldn’t want to think there was any kind of subterfuge involved in your request. Some of the intelligence you gave us turned out to be faulty.”

“I’m shocked,” Naavarasi said.

Caitlin spread her hands, showing her open palms. “Let’s get on with the meeting, shall we? Baron Naavarasi, I bid you formal greeting on behalf of the eminent and merciful Prince Sitri and welcome you within our sacred borders, under the terms of the Cold Peace.”

Naavarasi’s eyes narrowed to slits. “So very formal.”

“We have these formalities for a reason,” Caitlin said. “And tradition is important.”

“Right,” Naavarasi said. “Wouldn’t want to miss that. Is this what you do? Parrot pretty words someone wrote for you while you pretend you’re an automaton?”

Caitlin tilted her head. “Greeting dignitaries, Baron, is part of my duty as Prince Sitri’s hound. And visible emotions have no place in a diplomatic conference.”

I poured myself a glass of sparkling water, and leaned back. Naavarasi fidgeted in her chair, marinating in her unhappiness, and I could see why. Caitlin was treating the hunger-spirit like she was part of hell’s dominion, when that was the last thing Naavarasi wanted.

“Hey,” I said, “Naavarasi.”

Both women looked my way. I raised my glass.

“You got us, fair and square. It was a good trick. Respect.”

She blinked, uncertain at first, like I might be mocking her, but then she started to smile.

“You were both completely safe,” she said, “the entire time. I wouldn’t have let anything bad happen to you.”

It was another lie-without-lying. Nothing bad from
her
point of view would have happened. I let that slide without comment. The important thing was that she felt safe admitting she’d tried to con us. We weren’t enemies now; we were coconspirators.

Caitlin caught my angle, like I knew she would. Her gaze flitted from me to the rakshasi as a faint smile played on her lips.

“My prince is fond of cleverness. Prince Malphas, from what I understand…not so much.”

“He is fond of nothing but profit,” Naavarasi said. “Paper. So much passion to be reaped in this world, so much joy and terror, and he obsesses over
paper
.”

“Choir of Greed,” Caitlin told me with a
what
-
can
-
you
-
do?
shrug. She sipped her sparkling water and looked back to Naavarasi. “I understand he annexed your old realm, is that right?”

“Annexed? He
ruined
—” Naavarasi started to say, then caught herself. She wanted to let it all out. I could feel her aching to talk, but she also knew that the enemy of her enemy wasn’t necessarily her friend. She was still accountable to Prince Malphas. For now.

“…my realm is no longer what it was,” she said, sullen. “But they gave me a title, and a seat on a council I’ve never bothered attending, and twenty acres of land in hell. I’m told it’s nice.”

Caitlin stood, smoothed her skirt, and said, “Could you excuse us just a moment?”

She tapped my shoulder. I followed her out of the conference room. She shut the door behind us.

“You found the key to her lock,” Caitlin said.

I shrugged. “You can’t treat Naavarasi like she’s part of the courts. You heard her—she hates what Malphas did to her, and she doesn’t
want
to assimilate. Honors and awards from your people just insult her. Imagine if somebody gave you a trophy for ‘making such a great effort to be a real human being.’ You’d be pissed.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“Praise her on her own terms, and show she’s valued for what she is: a rakshasi queen. She’s starving for that. We know she’s plotting against Malphas. All she wants is a little understanding. Give it to her and she’ll play right into Sitri’s hands.”

“And is that wise?” Caitlin said. “Given her designs on you, to clasp a poisonous snake to our breast?”

“Would you rather she be out in the wild, plotting and planning who knows what? Or someplace close where we can keep an eye on her? Of course we can’t trust her, that’s her nature. We don’t
need
to trust her if we can see her coming in advance. Besides, if she thinks there’s a chance she’ll get Sitri’s full support when she makes her move against Malphas, she has less reason to try to snare me again.”

Caitlin broke into a smile and pulled me into her arms.

“You,” she murmured into my ear as her fingernails played through my hair, “are learning to think like one of us.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

“I need to have a private chat with Naavarasi before she heads back to Denver,” Caitlin mused as she pulled away. “Feel her out. Seduce her a bit.”

“Can I at least get pictures?” I said, wriggling my eyebrows like Groucho Marx.

She swatted my arm. “If it was
that
kind of seduction, I might invite you to join in. Maybe. Come over tomorrow? Swing by around ten and we’ll go surprise Melanie.”

“Will do,” I said, then paused. I pointed down a random hallway and gave her a questioning look. Caitlin took my hand and pushed it until my finger aimed down a totally different corridor.

“That way,” she said. “First left, next left, then second right.”

I repeated the directions in my head, all the way to the stairs.

• • •

I wanted a drink, but not here. Winter wasn’t my kind of place. I was about one demographic too old, one decade out of fashion, and two tax brackets too poor to hang with this crowd. The Tiger’s Garden was more my scene and had the added bonus of exclusivity. If you weren’t a bona fide magician, you didn’t get in the door. Or find the door.

Still, I lingered on the edge of the dance floor a bit, taking in the vibe and nodding my head to the spine-throbbing beat. Then I looked over toward the bar and my teeth clenched.

She’d layered on a raccoon mask of makeup and her little black dress was shorter than my temper, but I’d recognize that mop of neon blue hair from a mile away. I cut through the crowd like a shark spotting a manatee, moved up behind her, and snatched the drink from her hand.

“Hey!” Melanie shouted, turning—then she saw my face and froze. “Oh. Oh, hey.”

I sipped her drink. Some kind of fruity strawberry thing with enough rum to knock out a mule.

“Hey, Melanie. Think you’re a little young for this, by about three years.”

“That’s not what my ID says.”

From the smell of her breath, this wasn’t her first round. I set her glass on the bar and slid it out of her reach.

“That’s what
I
say,” I told her. “What are you doing here?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Came with some friends.”

“Yeah? Where are they?”

She squinted into the crowd. I waited patiently, or at least as patiently as I could manage.

“They’re here somewhere,” she said.

“Well, now you’re with me. Come on, I’m taking you home.”

I had to give her a tug on the arm to get her walking. Outside on the sidewalk, I took off my blazer and draped it over her shoulders to keep off the night chill. She wore it sullenly all the way to my car.

“This is ridiculous,” she said as I opened the passenger door and ushered her in. “And you’re a fucking hypocrite.”

I walked around the car, got in, and revved the engine.

“How do you figure?” I said.

“You mean to tell me that when you were my age, you
never
drank? You never used a fake ID or went somewhere you weren’t allowed?”

I almost laughed. Those were my
minor
sins.

“There is a special kind of hypocrisy,” I said, “that comes from wisdom born of age. It works like this: I did really stupid shit when I was a kid, and I paid for it. I do not want
you
to have to pay for
your
stupid shit, so I intervene, knowing where your chosen road is headed.”

“So you just decided to ruin my night, because you care about me.”

“That sounds about right,” I said.

She didn’t speak to me for rest of the drive. Can’t say I blamed her.

Everything about Emma Loomis’s house screamed
ordinary and respectable
. That was by design. It was a spacious tan stucco house in a sleepy little cul-de-sac, with a manicured lawn and no reason for anyone to look at it twice. I pulled into the driveway and followed Melanie to the front door.

“Seriously?” she said, looking over her shoulder at me as she jostled her keys in the lock.

“Seriously,” I said. “I’m not leaving until you’re in bed and asleep, to make sure you don’t just leave again the second I’m gone. It’s either that or I can call your mom and let her deal with you.”

“Like she gives a shit.”

Track lighting clicked on, casting glowing circles across polished tile and prim white carpet. The last time I’d been in the Loomises’ living room, it was to assemble the best and brightest of Vegas’s magical and underworld communities for a single purpose: giving Melanie’s dad enough rope to hang himself.

“She really does care, you know,” I said.

Melanie spun to face me, waving at the cold and empty room.

“Yeah? Then where is she, huh? Oh, right. She’s four hundred miles away, renovating a
whorehouse
, because that’s more important than being with her own daughter right now!”

I didn’t have a good answer for that. I didn’t think there was one. I still had to try.

“Different people handle their pain different ways,” I said. “Your mom…she’s one of those people who has to be working, all the time. She’s got to keep her hands busy and her head full, because she’s probably afraid she’ll crash if she doesn’t.”

“And what about what I need? I don’t even know how she can stand being at that place, after what she…” Melanie shook her head. She fell down onto the sofa and stared at the dead television.

“What?” I said.

When she looked back at me, her eyes were brimming with tears.

“I need you to tell me something. And I need the truth. Swear you’ll tell me the truth.”

I nodded. “Okay. You got it.”

The words took a long time coming, but I already knew what she was going to ask.

“I need to know,” she said, “did my mom kill my dad?”

Only three people were in that room when it all went down. One was dead and two were liars.

This conversation had been a long time coming. Didn’t make me dread it any less. I shook my head.

“No,” I told her. “I did.”

M
elanie’s expression didn’t change. She sat there, frozen. Blue veins pulsed beneath the skin of her face, spreading out in a web that resembled a butterfly’s wings, as the stress drove her demonic blood to the surface.

“We were going to let him go,” I said. “But he pulled a gun. He was going to shoot your mom. If I hadn’t jumped him and done…done what I did, he would have killed her. He didn’t give me any choice.”

Her eyes were like a dam pushing back against a raging flood. Her jaw clenched, like she couldn’t force the words out. I sat down next to her.