Vegas Knights (25 page)

  "He tried to explain that to me last night."

  "And?"

  "I think I need to get another opinion."

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I had a bunch of text messages, mostly from friends either back in New Orleans, stuck in school, or out on spring break somewhere else. I scrolled through them, and one name stuck out: Powi.

  I turned the phone to show Bill, and he gave me a noncommittal shrug. "What's she have to say?"

  I thumbed the message open. It read: "What the hell is wrong with you two? If you're still in town, we need to talk. NOW."

  "She sends her love," I said.

  "Right." He snorted. "Right back at her."

  I decided to skip the text back to Powi and just call her. She picked up after only one ring.

  "I already heard," she said. "How soon can you get to the Thunderbird?"

  "Give us ten minutes." I looked at Bill. "Make that twenty."

  "Meet me in front of the Sweat Lodge," she said. "Just go in the lobby then follow the wall to the right."

  She hung up before I could say good-bye.

  Bill jumped in the shower, and twenty minutes later we were hoofing it down the street to the Thunderbird, each munching on a Danish and slugging back some bad coffee as we went. We walked in through the front lobby, and a doorman directed us to the Sweat Lodge, which turned out to be a night club. At this time of day, it was closed, but Powi stood in front of it.

  As we approached, she raised the velvet rope strung across the doorway and shepherded us inside the darkened club. The decorator had tried to blend earthy Native American themes and colors with the sterile neon and glass of a Las Vegas night club with only minimal success. I guessed that when the lights were on and the music was playing and the place was packed with people it might look fantastic. It stood quiet and empty now, though, and it felt like we were walking into a cheap replica of a burial ground.

  "Did you tell anyone else you were coming here?" she asked.

  Bill and I shook our heads. She peered over our shoulders to see if anyone was following us. If they were, I knew it would be too late for us to do anything about it, but I neglected to point that out. She didn't seem like she was in the mood for any observations like that at the moment.

  "Good. Now keep your mouths shut and follow me."

  Powi guided us to a table in the back of what had to be the VIP lounge. A woman sat there waiting for us. She had long, white braids and brown, wrinkled skin that crinkled around dark eyes that seemed to have forgotten more things than I would ever see.

  Powi sat us down across the table from the old woman and said, "Jackson Wisdom and Bill Teach, I'd like you to meet my grandmother, Muatagoci Mamaci."

  "Call me Mamaci." Despite her years, her back was straight and her voice was strong, and she spoke with the assurance of someone who was habitually listened to by everyone around her. I decided to make a point of not being the exception.

  "Pleased to meet you," Bill said. I nodded in agreement.

  "I wish I could say the same," said Mamaci. "Powaqa here has told me of your troubles. Like her, I had hoped you had put this city far behind you, and I regret that your path has brought you back."

  "Actually, we never left," said Bill.

  "We tried," I said, "but Benito Gaviota stopped us and brought us back to Bootleggers."

  "And so you have already joined him," Mamaci said. She spoke as if the words tasted sour in her mouth.

  "No," I said. "They asked me to join them, but I'm still considering my options."

  "Then we are not entirely lost."

  Bill sucked at his teeth. "But we're not entirely found either," he said. "I officially joined them last night."

  Mamaci's eyes flew wide, and her lips drew back from her teeth in a pained rictus. She gripped the edge of the table before her so hard that her bony knuckles turned white. I thought she might spit in Bill's face, but she brought herself back under control.

  "What did they offer you?" she said. "What could make a young man like you take up with them? Power? Money?"

  Bill shrugged, as if to say, "If this loony old lady's going to hate me, I might has well enjoy it." He smirked. "Sure. That and the fact that they really know how to have a good time."

  Mamaci put her face in her long thin hands. "Such a fool," she said. "To have so little respect for yourself and your own power that you sell it to others for nothing more than fun."

  Bill turned to Powi. "I hate to say this, but your grandma's a real buzzkill."

  Powi slapped him. He rubbed his cheek and gave her a sadistic grin.

  "You don't get it," she said. "You have no idea what you've done to yourself. You and your friend here barge into town with an idiotic plan, and you have to learn the hard way that the promise of easy money is nothing more than a trap."

  "That makes him and everyone else in Vegas," I said. "Don't play so innocent. You work for a casino. You draw people in the same way and then suck them dry."

  Powi folded her arms across her chest. "Mamaci doesn't work for the casino. She built it for the Paiute chiefs. She runs it."

  "My people were here before the casinos came," Mamaci said. "We'll be here long after they're dust."

  "That's great," I said, "but can't we all just get along?"

  Mamaci pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at me. She stayed frozen like that for so long that I wondered if she'd had a seizure or a stroke. Then she opened her papery lips and spoke.

  "You have no idea what your Mr Weiss is up to, do you?"

  "He's working on cracking the secret of life so he can resurrect himself."

  The old woman nodded, impressed. "Very good, but do you know how he plans to go about that?"

  "I don't know if he knows yet. If he did, wouldn't he have already done it by now? He doesn't seem the sort to wait."

  Mamaci grunted. "Mr Weiss has been waiting for over seventy-three years. He can wait a little longer to make sure he gets everything right."

  I sat back in my chair and spread my arms wide. "So?" I said. "Enlighten us."

  "You may not be so glib once you know the truth," she said. "For that reason alone, I'll tell it to you."

  She leaned forward on the table, and her shoulders crept up around her ears like the crests of the wings of a gigantic vulture. "Have you ever read
The Lord of the Rings
?"

  Bill almost choked. I pounded him on the back until he was all right enough to push me away.

  "Sure," I said to Mamaci. "My father read
The Hobbit
to me when I was a kid. He got me hooked."

  "In the books, the dark lord Sauron puts a portion of his might into the rings of power. He gives them to others to corrupt them and put them under his sway. They make that trade for power, not understanding what they are giving up in return."

  "I said I read the books."

  "Why do you think he does that?"

  "He increases his power. Even the One Ring, which he keeps for himself, brings him more power because he can use it better when it's been forged into a tool."

  Mamaci smiled. "You are more clever than you appear."

  I wasn't sure if that felt like a compliment or not.

  "Are you saying that Harry Houdini has become the Sauron of Las Vegas?" Bill gaped at the old woman. "Respectfully, ma'am, you're out of your mind."

  "There are days I wish I was. It would be much easier to face."

  Bill stood up. "I don't have to sit here and listen to this."

  "Has he put his mark on you?" she asked. "Has he turned you into one of his tools of power?"

  Bill rubbed his arm where the tattoo of the ankh lay hidden under his jacket.

  Mamaci's gaze darted to his hand. "I see that he already has. Then for you, I'm afraid, it is too late."

  Four well-muscled men in black T-shirts and pants entered the VIP lounge. They stood like a solid wall between us and the only door.

  "We cannot let Mr Weiss utilize you," Mamaci said. "To keep that from happening, we must get rid of you."

 
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
 

I stood up between Bill and the Thunderbird thugs. "Hold on here," I said. "Let's not do anything stupid."

  "Your friend took care of that last night," Powi said. "It's bad enough that you didn't leave town, but to sign up with the Cabal?"

  "For that, you're going to run me out of town?" said Bill.

  Mamaci frowned. "No distance would prevent Weiss from finding you or using you. There is no escape from him, I'm afraid, but death."

  "You can't be serious," I said. "This is a joke, right?"

  "Grandma?" Powi gaped at Mamaci's pronouncement of Bill's death sentence.

  "I was right about you," Bill said to the old woman, his voice growing louder and higher as he spoke. "You're insane!"

  At a jerk of Mamaci's head toward Bill, the four men surged forward. I threw a punch at the first one of them, hoping to just buy Bill enough time to get away. It felt like hitting a wall.

  The man I'd struck grabbed me, knocked me down, and pinned me to the floor. Outside of a video, I'd never seen someone move so fast. He knocked the breath flat out of me, and I lay there, gasping for air as he sat on my chest.

  Bill turned and ran, trying to slip away through the back wall. He almost made it. One of the men tackled him to the ground, and he landed hard. Every part of him from his chest on up disappeared through the long couch sitting there, but Mamaci's man refused to let go. As he struggled with Bill, another of the men grabbed Bill's legs and hauled him back into the lounge.

  Bill's voice had been muffled by his head being inside the couch, but when it emerged, his screams echoed throughout the empty nightclub.

  "–ooo! Help! Jackson! Help meeee!"

  A third man stomped over and punched Bill in the face. That shut him up.

  "Grandma!" Powi said. "What are you doing?"

  The old woman pushed herself to her feet and stared down at Bill and me. "I'm sorry, Powaqa, but Mr Weiss has grown too powerful. We came here to stop him, and it is time we put that plan into action."

  "What plan? You want to kill everyone in the Cabal?"

  Mamaci did not answer. At a gesture from her, the men hauled Bill and me to our feet.

  The man holding me had an iron grip on my bicep so tight that it felt like he might rip my arm off if I tried to move away. I still had to gasp for air. It's amazing how not being able to breathe helps focus your attention on your most basic needs.

  Two of the men held up Bill while a third stood next to him, cracking his knuckles. Blood trickled from a cut on Bill's forehead. It ran down the side of his face and ran under his collar. He stared at Mamaci with glassy eyes. I wondered if he might have a concussion, but I realized that wouldn't matter much if they killed him.

  "The members of the Cabal are like Mr Weiss's rings of power. They amplify his might, but they are also his greatest weakness. Every one of them we destroy damages him too. With enough of them gone, he will finally be vulnerable, and we can put him back into the grave in which he belongs."

  "Can't you start with someone else?" I said. "Bill's not one of them really. He a poser. He just likes to talk tough."

  "Expose his right arm," Mamaci said to the brute not holding up either Bill or me.

  The man grabbed Bill's jacket and dug his fingers into its shoulder. With one vicious move, he tore the sleeve right off it. He did the same to Bill's shirt and tossed the fabric aside.

  The ankh tattoo encircling Bill's bicep glistened there on his arm as if it had just been drawn on his skin with fresh ink.

  "You bear the mark," Mamaci said. "Your fate is sealed."

  "Grandma! I would never have brought them over here if I thought it meant you would kill one of them. They're idiots, but that's not a capital crime."

  "Sometimes it is, Powaqa." The old woman had the grace to at least sound sad about it. "This is unfortunately one of those times."

  Mamaci glared at Bill with steely eyes. "With the proper ritual, we can take your power – and Mr Weiss's – for our own. At least in that way, your death will not be in vain."

  Bill brought his head back up, his eyes refocusing. "Houdini was right about you," he said. "You're just power-hungry bastards bent on taking a stab at destroying everything he's built."

  "From his point of view, I suppose there's some truth to that," Mamaci said. "But not from mine." She turned and strode out of the room.

  The men holding Bill dragged him right after her. I made a move toward the discarded scraps of Bill's clothing, but the guy with his hand on my arm hauled me back. "I just want to grab my friend's clothes," I said.

  "He won't be needing them," the man said.

  Powi scooped Bill's scrapped sleeves up and handed them to me. As she did, his bracelet – which was what I had been looking for – tumbled out. She stared at it for a half second, then snatched it up.

  She held it in her hand and stared at it. I put on my best poker face, hoping that the bracelet hadn't turned itself right-side out when it had been ripped off of Bill's arm. If not, there was a good chance she wouldn't recognize it for what it was.

  Powi dashed my hopes by peering through the center of the bracelet. She had to be able to see into the magic pocket that Bill had created inside of it.

  "Ah," she said. "Is this what you were looking for?"

  With a Mona Lisa smile, she reached out and handed the bracelet to me. I let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding and hefted the bracelet in my hand. It felt like nothing. I stuffed it in my pocket with my free hand.