Born To Be Wilde: Immortal Vegas, Book 3 (13 page)

“How long are you in town?”

“As long as I’m required. I’ll be making my appearance to the Council later this week.” She nodded to Jimmy. “He can see them too, if you’re wondering. Probably one of the more Connected people in Vegas, and I know that’s saying a lot.” She grinned, her eyes crinkling at the edges. “Armaeus’s little blast last week about fried his brains, though.”

“You sensed that?” I swiveled my gaze to Jimmy, who looked sheepish at the attention. “How did it affect you?”

He shrugged. “My sight’s screwy, if that’s what you mean.”

“And by screwy, he means fixed,” Blue put in. “Twenty-twenty vision without his contacts, and believe me, he was a mess before. His second sight is also improving.” She made a face. “Gonna make it hard to ink the typicals if he keeps it up.”

Now it was Jimmy’s turn to grimace. “Nothing worse than trying to talk someone out of a romantic tattoo when you know flat-out the feeling isn’t mutual.”

I held up my wrist to the light. “Um… Does this come with an instruction manual?”

“You need a tether point here—I’d pick Armaeus, since you trust him the most.” She grinned again, as if at some private joke. “Usually. You’ve tranced out before, right? You’ll do the same with this.”

“Ah…okay. Then what?”

“Like I said, it’s a key. You pick the point where you want to go in your mind, and when a barrier kicks up, that symbol will get you through. No secret words, no map, no spells. This is more direct, trust me.”

“And coming back?”

“You’ll need to focus on whoever your tether point is. The tighter your connection the better. Blood is good, sex is good, even rage if you don’t have a physical bond.”

“Blood like family?” I wasn’t touching the sex idea with a ten-foot pole. “Because I’m fresh out of that.”

“Or blood brothers. There’s a reason for that old practice,” she said. “Whatever you think will be a strong enough tie to bring you back. That’s really the key. Coming back isn’t about being able to jump dimensions so much. It’s about reasons, belief. You have to know you’re wanted, and you have to be wanted enough that you’re pulled through, no matter what.”

I nodded, though my mind was churning. Had there ever been someone like that for me? Maybe Brody, a long time ago, before I’d run. Before I’d left him wondering if I were dead for ten years. Would he come looking for me now if I vanished again? Would anyone?

Blue’s gaze was steady on me, and I managed a shaky smile. “Sounds like a little bit more than a typical astral travel journey.”

“It’s—similar. But you will be traveling physically as well as psychically. Your body will be present in Atlantis, and you can be killed.”

“Oh. That’s…ah, good to know.”

She shrugged. “Life is change. You’ll get used to it.”

A bell rang at the front, and Jimmy jumped. “You can stay here as long as you want,” Blue said as I levered out of the chair. “Not like there’s going to be a rush on tattoos.”

“I don’t know, word gets out that Blue Ice is back in town, you might have a run on the place.”

She laughed easily, but her gaze never left me as I reached for my hoodie. “When you ink someone, blood’s spilled, you know. It can be a messy process. I’ve seen a lot of blood in my day.”

I winced. “If you’re telling me the walls back there are covered in arterial spray, sorry about that.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” She shrugged off the wall and sauntered toward me. I held my ground, but I couldn’t deny the jacking of my heart rate, the sudden heat in my wrist. “I mean I see
into
someone’s blood. I can tell things by the mix and measure of it. Who lives, who dies. Who is strong, who is weak. More energy is contained in a single drop of blood than in the multistate power grids, if you know how to channel it. How to set it on fire.”

“Yeah?” I pulled on my hoodie, careful not to scrape the tender flesh of my inner wrist. It may have sealed up, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. “Did my blood have anything to say?”

“It did.” She stopped in front of me and reached out with a lazy hand, catching my chin with her finger and tilting it up until I met her gaze. “It said you would be coming back to me. And soon.”

She held my gaze for a long moment, and I felt the essence of her words burn into me. Another bell rang, and Blue glanced toward the front of the shop, breaking the moment. I blinked myself back to the present.

“If that’s your sales pitch, it’s a damned good one.”

She nodded, allowing me the out. “I try.”

The heat of the day seemed somehow less oppressive when I walked out of Darkworks Ink. I squinted up at the dusky sky. I’d apparently been in Blue’s chair most of the day. It was nearing evening, and I felt out of sorts, off my game. Across the parking lot, Dixie’s was deserted. I couldn’t face the idea of an air-conditioned cab, though, so I set off on foot. My skin felt strangely chilled, and I was beginning to seriously consider the error of my ways by the time I got to the Strip. I blinked, looking at the skyline, then blinked again.

The Emperor’s keep no longer gleamed like a dull, empty husk. Instead, it punched out of the ground with almost a demanding presence, its surface electric, almost blue-black in the light from the setting sun. It wasn’t the only changed Tower either. Soaring above Treasure Island, the White Tower seemed bolder and fiercer too, suddenly as occupied as the Foolscap, Scandal, and, of course, Prime Luxe.

Was the Emperor already here? I could feel the crackle of energy in the air, riffling across my senses. If Viktor was on the Strip…

My phone rang. I clicked it on. “Sara,” I snapped, more harshly than I intended.

“Mademoiselle Wilde.” The voice stopped me dead in my tracks.

I’d worked for Mercault on only a few occasions, but they were memorable ones. Memorable and lucrative. Mercault had come to Vegas a few weeks ago just shy of body-bag status, however, and I hadn’t heard that he’d recovered.

“Good to hear your voice,” I said. It wasn’t a lie.

“Yours as well,” he assured me in his lilting French cadence. “And I suspect I will not get much of an opportunity to speak with you in private once it’s learned that I have embarked on the road to recovery. Can you meet me?”

“In the hospital?” I frowned. I hated hospitals. More importantly I had a transdimensional journey to embark on. But Mercault was a client, a client who paid me really well. A client prone to fits of vengeful petulance when he didn’t get what he wanted when he wanted. As badly as I yearned for Viktor’s head on an Atlantean pike, Mercault could be a font of useful information when he was so inclined. I needed to keep him inclined. “I mean, sure. I guess.”

“
Mais non.
I have taken a suite of rooms at the Bellagio. You know it, yes?”

My gaze shifted to the enormous casino and its bevy of dancing fountains, far up the Strip. Simon’s domain soared above it, but of all the members of the Council, Simon would have no problem with me roaming around his crib’s subbasement. “Well enough.”

“
Magnifique.
I will expect you within the half hour.”

I made it up the boulevard in good time, skirting the crowds and entering the gorgeous hotel at a relaxed pace. For all that I’d seen the Bellagio from the outside, I’d never actually been inside. It was every bit as opulent as I’d expected, however, and my enjoyment was not dampened one bit by the fact that two Frenchmen with guns fell into step beside me almost as soon as I’d entered the lobby.

“Mademoiselle Wilde?” one of them asked, though I suspected the fact that I was the only woman wearing a beat-up hoodie and jeans in the magnificent lobby was probably a dead giveaway to my identity. I nodded, and they kept their guns beneath their jackets like good little killers. I was elegantly marched over to an enormous bay of elevators, and I tried to look relaxed.

We boarded, and one of the muscle men slipped out a key to allow access to the penthouse floor. A penthouse floor in the Bellagio? Mercault never did anything halfway, I had to give him credit for that.

When I finally saw him face-to-face a few minutes later, my admiration only increased. He was looking surprisingly good for a dead man.

“Mademoiselle Wilde.” Mercault repeated his bodyguard’s greeting, but with much more flair. After suffering the European kiss, I stood back from him and eyed him critically.

“You seem…whole.”

“Remarkably so. My family, less so.” Mercault strolled to the ample bar against the wall and poured two balloons of cognac. “I have much to thank you for.”

I winced. He’d suffered much—more than most could endure. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I murmured, but Mercault waved off my words.

“This is not the important thing.” He handed a glass to me. “Grief comes later, in private, when I have rebuilt. Until then, it is a raw and open wound, meant only to help me focus.” He swirled the cognac in his glass, staring at the patterns it made. “I have a debt to repay, to you and your patron, I know. A patron who I suspect is going to exact his repayment from me via slow and rather torturous conversation.”

I shrugged. “Or you could give him permission to read your mind. Unless you have secrets to hide. He’ll probably find those out anyway, given enough time. But the upside is, you give him access to your thoughts, you won’t waste an afternoon, and he’ll be in
your
debt again. It’s not a bad position.”

Mercault surveyed me from beneath heavy-lidded eyes. “I see what you are saying, but this mind reading… Will he warn me of it?”

“Probably not.” I grinned. “So if you go in and offer it, it’ll catch him off guard. He’s too polite not to accept it as the gift it is.”

“Yes…yes. I want an alliance with your people.”

“Not my, uh, call,” I answered awkwardly. My instinct had been to disavow the Arcana Council as my people, but…they sort of were, I supposed. At least until I got the children back.

Mercault didn’t seem to notice my hesitation. He leaned forward, his eyes intent upon me. “In the meantime, then, I have a job for you.”

Chapter Ten

My eyebrows fought each other in an epic struggle to reach the top of my forehead first. “You are barely upright, Mercault. You should be focusing on healing.”

“Believe me, this will help me heal.” He gestured to the table, where two high-backed overstuffed dining chairs sat. “You are right, though. I will tire too quickly if I don’t rest.”

He took a chair, and I pulled the other one out and away from the table before settling into it as well. Mercault had been a good client, but he was devious, coldhearted, and an absolute nutter. That level of crazy could be directed at me at any time.

“Two weeks ago, you attended the Rarity show,” he said. “There was another of the black market elite there, Annika Soo. Her loyalties are of great interest to me.”

“I thought you syndicate guys weren’t loyal to anything but your next infusion of cash.”

He smiled thinly. “Soo’s holdings have not, to my knowledge, been infiltrated by the scum that is SANCTUS, while that organization has been a patent thorn in my side,” he said. I nodded. I had personal experience with SANCTUS, none of it good. The quasi-religious, quasi-military organization was dedicated to the elimination of all things magical. All things, all people, and, apparently, all suppliers. “I am losing money and facilities, while she is stepping in to control the flow where my supply chain is being disrupted.”

My brows took up residence near the ceiling. They were comfortable there. “You think she’s on SANCTUS’s payroll?” I considered what I knew about Annika Soo. Chinese, tough, and reclusive, she’d been a warrior in another syndicate before she’d risen to prominence by cutting off that organization’s head. Literally. A bloodbath of
Kill Bill
proportions had ensued, and she’d been in power ever since. That had been five years ago, about the time I was learning that there was something called an “arcane black market.” Oh, what a difference a few years could make.

I refocused on Mercault, who hadn’t answered my question, so I helped him along by asking a second one. “Is she trafficking Connected children too?” It seemed that for every rock of nasty I turned over, there was another larger one to follow.

“That, I would suspect not. Mademoiselle Soo started out her life as a slave. She is not known to be fond of the practice.” He shifted a glance to me. “You said you met her?”

“Eyed her across the room at the Rarity. We didn’t chat.”

He pursed his lips. “I expected her to approach you there.”

“Well, we got a little sidetracked.” I frowned. “Last I knew, she was recuperating in Vegas.”

“No longer.” He rolled the cognac in his glass again. “She undoubtedly received the same influx of power I did, only I don’t know how she was affected. However, I do know that she’s out of the city, back in Shanghai. I want you to find her, tell me where she is and who is with her.”

“Sorry, Mercault.” I set my glass on the table and stood before he could break my heart with how much he was willing to pay. “My dance card is a little full these days.”

“No.” He shook his head, his expression fierce. “You will not need to leave this room, unless I miss my guess.” He pointed at my chair. “You can tell me everything I need to know right here.”

It took me only a few seconds to figure out what he meant. I swore under my breath.

“You want me to travel—like I did when I saw you last. To find her in, um, spirit.” I blew out a breath. I’d never tried astral travel without the direction of one of the Council. I waited for Armaeus to hit me with one of his trademark “Miss Wilde” cranial insertions, but my brain remained quiet. Then I remembered. I’d completely shut him out, unless I phoned home. The influx of ability had affected me too, enough to turn the dial down on the most powerful Connected in the world.

So…maybe I could travel on my own.

“Two hundred thousand dollars, Mademoiselle Wilde,” Mercault purred.

Then reality kicked me in the head. I liked Mercault, but that didn’t make him any less of a criminal. And I was decidedly outnumbered here. Not a problem while I was upright, but locked into a trance? No way could I protect myself then.